Teaching Robots to Navigate

01 Nov 2012 - 15:26:17 in Research

Teaching Robots to Navigate

Dr Will Browne (Senior Lecturer) and Henry Williams (PhD candidate) are researching ways to teach autonomous robots to learn to navigate themselves without human interaction. The process of a robot constructing a map of its surroundings and at the same time locating where it is positioned within that map is called simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM).

This research has important applications in a search and rescue situation, such as sending robots in to search collapsed buildings. Cheaper disposable robots could be used to map the building, and this information could then be used by a larger robot that is better equipped, say with a heat-seeking device.

Henry Williams is also working with a system called Rat SLAM, which uses visual inputs for map construction and localisation, e. g. the visual inputs from a 360° degree camera are weighted according to their usefulness, so images from the front of the vehicle, which change frequently are retained, while images of the sky or verges are discarded.

To listen to the broadcast and read the full accompanying article, click on the link below:

www.radionz.co.nz/ourchangingworld

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