Coverage Algorithms for Under - Actuated Car - Like Vehicle in an Uncertain Environment by Navid Nourani - Vatani Supervisors :

A coverage algorithm in robotics is an algorithm that deploys a strategy as how to cover all points in terms of a given area using some set of sensors and a robot. In the past decades a lot of research has gone into development of coverage algorithms. Initially, the focus was coverage of structured and semistructured indoor areas, but with time and development of better sensors and introduction of GPS, the focus has turned to outdoor coverage; however, due to nearby buildings and trees GPS signals are often corrupted in many outdoor areas. The unstructured nature of an outdoor environment makes covering an outdoor area with all its obstacles and simultaneously performing reliable localization a difficult task. In this paper, path planning algorithms suitable for solving outdoor coverage tasks are introduced. The algorithms take into account the kinematic constraints of an under-actuated car-like vehicle, minimize trajectory curvatures, and dynamically avoid detected obstacles in the vicinity. Furthermore, the algorithms are suitable for laser based localization and mapping which alleviates any dependencies on GPS. These algorithm are developed for real-time usage. We demonstrate the performance of the coverage algorithms in the field by achieving 95% coverage using an autonomous tractor mower without the aid of any global localization or constraints on the physical boundaries of the area. Some of the achievements of this project have also been published in the Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation (ACRA’06) [NouraniVatani et al., 2006] and will be published in the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA’07) [Bosse et al., 2007].