Online Cell Decomposition with a Laser Range Finder for Coverage Path in an Unknown Workspace

Although autonomous mobile robots have been increasingly popular in a known workspace, but they face the challenging task of operation in an unknown workspace. This paper presents a sensor-based image matching for online cell decomposition to plan coverage path-that provides a mobile robot one of suitable complete coverage of an unknown rectilinear workspace. Authors develop a new method for cell decomposition that is called adaptive cell decomposition based on two assumptions. First, cells are composed by adaptive cell decomposition method from explored map. Second, virtual edges can be used to compose cells in this method. The basis of this approach is same as that of the boustrophedon cell decomposition. The proposed algorithm supports online coverage for a robot to explore unknown workspace and to achieve adaptive cell decomposition simultaneously in order to cover the workspace. KeywordsCell Decomposition, Online Decomposition, Coverage Path, Iterative Closest Point