This paper presents a self-contained system for the robust utilization of aerial robots in the autonomous exploration of cave environments to help human explorers, first responders, and speleologists. The proposed system is generally applicable to an arbitrary exploration task within an unknown and unstructured subterranean environment and interconnects crucial robotic subsystems to provide full autonomy of the robots. Such subsystems primarily include mapping, path and trajectory planning, localization, control, and decision making. Due to the diversity, complexity, and structural uncertainty of natural cave environments, the proposed system allows for the possible use of any arbitrary exploration strategy for a single robot, as well as for a cooperating team. A multi-robot cooperation strategy that maximizes the limited flight time of each aerial robot is proposed for exploration and search & rescue scenarios where the homing of all deployed robots back to an initial location is not required The entire system is validated in a comprehensive experimental analysis comprising of hours of flight time in a real-world cave environment, as well as by hundreds of hours within a state-of-the-art virtual testbed that was developed for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge robotic competition. Among others, experimental results include multiple real-world exploration flights traveling over 470 meters on a single battery in a demanding unknown cave environment.
翻译:由于自然洞穴环境的多样性、复杂性和结构性不确定性,拟议系统允许有可能使用任何任意的探索策略来帮助人类探险家、第一反应者和星体学家。拟议系统一般适用于在未知和无结构的地下环境中的任意探索任务,并将关键的机器人子系统相互连接,以提供机器人的充分自主性。这些子系统主要包括绘图、路径和轨迹规划、本地化、控制和决策。由于自然洞穴环境的多样性、复杂性和结构不确定性,拟议系统允许有可能使用任何任意的探索策略来帮助人类探险家、第一反应者和星体学家。提议采用多机器人合作战略,最大限度地增加每个空中机器人的有限飞行时间,用于探索和搜索和救援,不需要将所有部署的机器人带回初始位置。整个系统经过全面实验分析得到验证,其中包括在现实世界洞穴环境中飞行时数,以及在一个州级的虚拟测试台虚拟床内,为DARPA SubterranA 地心电磁四层的多层空间探索实验结果。其中包括了DARPA 地心对地心压的多层空间空间的实验。</s>