Intelligent Navigation of an Autonomous Outdoor Mobile

Robot in a Dynamic Environment

Problem Statement:
With the advancement of technology over the past few decades,
autonomous mobile robot navigation has become a popular topic for
researchers. Large companies are now moving towards integrating
autonomous mobile robots in their work areas. Despite the
prevalence of indoor robots in industries, creating full sized robots
that can navigate outdoors autonomously is still a great challenge.
Some big companies are now conducting research on driverless cars
that can drive through heavy traffic; notable for this kind of
development is the Googles driverless car designed by Sebastian
Thrun and his team. They have successfully designed the driverless
car and tested in on various states around the US, but the sensors
and systems used were far from being economical.
One of the main problems to this kind of research is the fact that
development of such a system can cost a huge sum of money and
that it can take a long time to develop it. However, many opensource solutions have now become readily available for developers,
cutting budget cost and development time. The OpenCV library,
developed by Intel, is a free for use library of programming functions
for computer vision systems. The Arduino hardware has gained
respect from a huge community online for opening its hardware to
the public. Their designs can be used as a base for controller
boards. With the help of these open-source software and hardware,
development of autonomous mobile robot can be much easier,
faster, and cheaper.
With all the tools needed, the focus of the research will to
implement an algorithm for a robots navigation system on a
dynamically changing environment. Firstly, the robot must be able
to map its surroundings during the first instance the robot has been
introduced to the environment. Successive maps will then be made
each time the robot passes the same area. Then, using a filtering
algorithm each time a new map is obtained, noise and other nonstationary objects will be removed, producing a detailed map of the
environment. To improve its navigation, the robot will then use the
filtered map.

Significance of the Research:

Success in this research can bring in additional information about

map-based navigation of a field mobile robot and improved
navigational algorithms for future mobile robots.
In addition, a mobile robot capable of navigating autonomously in a
dynamically changing environment would open up several possible
applications, such as design of an autonomous courier vehicle or as
a military reconnaissance vehicle. This can also be used to scout a
compound or a university campus.
Brief Literature Review:
The first problem when it comes to mobile robot navigation is
encountering an unfamiliar or unknown environment. One solution
to this problem is acquiring a detailed three-dimensional map of the
environment before that robot is to navigate the environment. This
can be achieved by taking multiple map samples of the environment
[12]. In this way, there is an assurance that a detailed map of the
environment is created, therefore relieving the robot from several
tasks and making the developers focus more on programming the
robots navigation system. However this approach is impractical and
time consuming. A better solution is incremental mapping: building
maps while the robot is exploring the environment and improving
the previous maps during multiple passes on the same environment
[4,5,6]. This method is commonly known as simultaneous
localization and mapping (SLAM). A work by Thrun et al [13],
describes the process of creating a real-time algorithm for mobile
robot mapping.
Another problem is the presence of non-stationary objects while the
map is being built. A filtering algorithm must be employed to
recognize and remove the moving objects from the map. The
resulting map will be without dynamic objects and with purely
stationary objects in it. Wolf et al [2] presents such an innovative
algorithm by comparing present and previous maps of the
environment. By combining the information between the maps, a
complete description of the environment is obtained. Another paper
by D. Ferguson et al [3], present an algorithm to remove moving
obstacles from the map. The algorithm employed involves four
pieces of information: a vectorized road structure, a static obstacle
map, an instantaneous obstacle map, and a dynamic obstacle list.
Object detection is also essential for mobile robot navigation. In the
work by Li et al. [10], they presented a research on ways to
integrate a sketched map together with a semantic map for a
robots navigation and using unified tags to help recognize
landmarks. Relying on GPS data alone for localization may not be
enough. Some high rise buildings or trees may affect the accuracy
of GPS units. With the use of computer vision to recognize objects
2

and landmarks together with GPS; localization and pose estimation

of the robot would be much more reliable.
In addition, computer vision can also be used to detect objects such
a traffic light [1], road intersections and edges [9], and pedestrians
[8,11], including animals. Detecting these objects is essential if the
robot is to interact and coexist with humans in a real environment.
The final issue that must be addressed in this research is obstacle
avoidance strategies and reactive behavior. Faisal et al. [7]
presented a work about using a fuzzy logic technique in robot
navigation and obstacle avoidance in an unknown environment.
Reactive behavior of a mobile robot is important while traversing in
a dynamic environment. With the insufficiency of information about
the environment, advanced artificial intelligence, problem solving,
and reasoning techniques of an autonomous mobile robot must be
employed.

Outlined Methodology:
I.

II.

III.

Computer Vision
a. Road Edge Detection
b. Pedestrian and Moving Object Detection
c. Land Mark Recognition
Incremental Map Building
a. Instantaneous Map Building
i. Static Obstacle Detection
ii. Dynamic Obstacle Detection
b. Static Obstacle Map Building
i. Dynamic Obstacle Removal
Fuzzy Logic Control
a. Path Planning Control
i. Concurrent Localization and Pose Estimation
ii. Destination Calculation and Planning Algorithm
iii. Road Following Algorithm
b. Obstacle Avoidance Control

Gantt Chart:

References:
[1]C. Chung, J. M. Wang, and S. W. Cheng. A vision-based traffic
light detection system at intersections. Journal of Taiwan
Normal University: Mathematics, Science and Technology,
2002, 47(1), 67-86.
[2]D. F. Wolf and G. S. Sukhatme. Mobile robot simultaneous
localization and mapping in dynamic environments. Robotic
Embedded Systems Laboratory, Center for Robotics and
Embedded Systems, Department of Computer Science,
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
[3]D. Ferguson, M. Darms, C. Urmson, and S. Kolski. Detection,
prediction, and avoidance of dynamic obstacles in urban
environments. Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Intelligent
Vehicles Symposium, June, 2008, pp. 1149-1154.
[4]H. Durrant-Whyte, Fellow, IEEE, and T. Bailey. Simultaneous
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and Intelligence Systmes, University of Souther California, Los

Angeles, CA, 90089.
[9]P. Viola, M. Jones, and Daniel Snow. Detecting pedestrians
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[10]
R. Chapuis, R. Aufrere, and F. Chausse. Accurate road
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Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol. 3, No.
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[11]
S. Thrun, W. Burgard, and D. Fox. A probabilistic
approach for concurrent map acquisition and localization for
mobile robots. School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. October 1997.
[12]
S. Thrun, W. Burgard, and D. Fox. A real-time algorithm
for mobile robot mapping with applications to multi-robot and
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Conference on Robotics and Automation, San Francisco, April
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[13]
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