Government & Industrial \ Research \ Semi-Autonomous Operations — Wayfarer

research - Semi-Autonomous Operations Wayfarer

The Need:

Warfighters in urban environments must perform reconnaissance to gain situational awareness and identify potential threats. Due to the close confines of the urban battlefield, these reconnaissance missions present a high level of risk. Robots that perform reconnaissance missions reduce this risk for warfighters, especially when they can operate autonomously beyond radio communications range and then return.

The Project:

The Wayfarer Project developed techniques to enable the man-portable iRobot® PackBot® tactical mobile robot to perform autonomous urban reconnaissance missions, including perimeter reconnaissance and route reconnaissance. The Wayfarer PackBot uses LIDAR and stereo vision for obstacle avoidance and mapping, as well as GPS/INS/odometry for localization. The robot follows building walls and urban streets while avoiding obstacles and building a map of the environment. The map is transmitted to the OCU and displayed in real time. Other behaviors allow the robot to use its flippers to climb large obstacles and to escape from being stuck. The Wayfarer mapping software is used as the basis for the mapping capability on the iRobot® PackBot® with Mapping Kit.

The Goals:

Develop robust 3-D obstacle avoidance behaviors for the PackBot.
Develop real-time mapping capabilities for the PackBot.
Develop behaviors to enable the PackBot to autonomously perform perimeter reconnaissance and route reconnaissance missions.

Autonomous Reconnaissance
Using LIDAR and stereo vision, PackBot follows building walls and urban streets while avoiding obstacles and building a map of the environment.

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