• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.449-455
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• 2014

This paper presents a method for developing a TM (Traversability Map) from a DTM (Digital Terrain Model) collected by remote sensors of autonomous mobile robots. Such a map can be used to plan traversable paths and estimate navigation speed quantitatively in real time for robots capable of performing autonomous tasks over rough terrain environments. The proposed method consists of three parts: a DTM partition module which divides the DTM into equally spaced patches, a terrain information module which extracts the slope and roughness of the partitioned patches using the curve fitting and the fractal-based triangular prism method, and a traversability analysis module which assesses traversability incorporating with extracted terrain information and fuzzy inference to construct a TM. The potential of the proposed method is validated via simulation works over a set of fractal DTMs.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.549-556
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• 2009

One of the basic technology for implementing the autonomy of UGV(Unmanned Ground Vehicle) is a path planning algorithm using obstacle and raw terrain information which are gathered from perception sensors such as stereo camera and laser scanner. In this paper, we propose a generation method of DVGM(Directional Velocity Grid Map) which have traverse speed of UGV for the five heading directions except the rear one. The fuzzy system is designed to generate a resonable traveling speed for DVGM from current patch to the next one by using terrain slope, roughness and obstacle information extracted from raw world model data. A simulation is conducted with world model data sampled from real terrain so as to verify the performance of proposed fuzzy inference system.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.292-300
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• 2011

Global positioning system (GPS) is widely used to measure the position of a vehicle. However, the accuracy of the GPS can be severely affected by surrounding environmental conditions. To deal with this problem, the GPS and odometry data can be combined using an extended Kalman filter. For stable navigation of an outdoor mobile robot using the GPS, this paper proposes two methods to evaluate the reliability of the GPS data. The first method is to calculate the standard deviation of the GPS data and reflect it to deal with the uncertainty of the GPS data. The second method is to match the GPS data to the traversability map which can be obtained by classifying outdoor terrain data. By matching of the GPS data with the traversability map, we can determine whether to use the GPS data or not. The experimental results show that the proposed methods can enhance the performance of the GPS-based outdoor localization.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.773-780
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• 2015

Navigation in outdoor environments is a fundamental and challenging problem for unmanned ground vehicles. Detecting lane markings or boundaries on the road may be one of the solutions to make navigation easy. However, because of various environments and road conditions, a robust lane detection is difficult. In this paper, we propose a new approach for estimating virtual lanes on a traversable region. Estimating the virtual lanes consist of two steps: (i) we detect virtual road region through road model selection based on traversability at current frame and similarity between the interframe and (ii) we estimate virtual lane using the number of lane on the road and results of previous frame. To improve the detection performance and reduce the searching region of interests, we use a probability map representing the traversability of the outdoor terrain. In addition, by considering both current and previous frame simultaneously, the proposed method estimate more stable virtual lanes. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach using real data in outdoor environments.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.339-348
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• 2010

One of the requirements for autonomous vehicles on off-road is to move stably in unstructured environments. Such capacity of autonomous vehicles is one of the most important abilities in consideration of mobility. So, many researchers use contact and/or non-contact methods to determine a terrain whether the vehicle can move on or not. In this paper we introduce an algorithm to classify terrains using visual information(one of the non-contacting methods). As a pre-processing, a contrast enhancement technique is introduced to improve classification of terrain. Also, for conducting classification algorithm, training images are grouped according to materials of the surface, and then Bayesian classification are applied to new images to determine membership to each group. In addition to the classification, we can build Traversability map specified by friction coefficients on which autonomous vehicles can decide to go or not. Experiments are made with Load-Cell to determine real friction coefficients of various terrains.

• Advances in robotics research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.127-140
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• 2014

This work presents an IR-based system for parking assistance and obstacle detection in the automotive field that employs the Microsoft Kinect camera for fast 3D point cloud reconstruction. In contrast to previous research that attempts to explicitly identify obstacles, the proposed system aims to detect "reachable regions" of the environment, i.e., those regions where the vehicle can drive to from its current position. A user-friendly 2D traversability grid of cells is generated and used as a visual aid for parking assistance. Given a raw 3D point cloud, first each point is mapped into individual cells, then, the elevation information is used within a graph-based algorithm to label a given cell as traversable or non-traversable. Following this rationale, positive and negative obstacles, as well as unknown regions can be implicitly detected. Additionally, no flat-world assumption is required. Experimental results, obtained from the system in typical parking scenarios, are presented showing its effectiveness for scene interpretation and detection of several types of obstacle.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.233-236
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• 2008

Recently, the development and application of unmaned robots are increasing in various fields including surveillance and reconnaissance, planet exploration and disaster relief. Unmaned robots are usually controlled from distance using radio communications but they should be equipped with autonomous travelling function to cope with unexpected terrains and obstacles. This means that unmanned robots should be able to evaluate terrain's characteristics quantitatively using mounted sensors so as to traverse harsh natural terrains autonomously. For this purpose, this paper presents an algorithm for extracting terrain information from elevation maps as an early step of traversability analysis. Slope and roughness information are extracted from a world terrain map based on least squares method and fractal theory, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified on both fractal and real terrain maps.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.909-915
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• 2008

Recently, the interests in the development and application of unmaned robots are increasing in various fields including surveillance and reconnaissance, planet exploration, and disaster relief. Unmaned robots are usually controlled from distance using radio communications but they should be equipped with an autonomous travelling function to cope with unexpected terrains and obstacles. This means that they should be able to evaluate terrain's characteristics quantitatively using mounted sensors so as to traverse harsh natural terrains autonomously. For this purpose, this paper presents a method for extracting terrain information, that is, slope and roughness from elevation maps as a prior step of traversability analysis. Slope is extracted using the curve fitting based on the least squares method and roughness using three metrics and their weighted average. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified on both a fractal map and the world model map of a real terrain.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.516-523
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• 2009

Recently, the applications of unmanned robots are increasing in various fields including surveillance and reconnaissance, planet exploration and disaster relief. To perform their missions with success, the robots should be able to evaluate terrain's characteristics quantitatively and identify traversable regions to progress toward a goal using mounted sensors. Recently, the authors have proposed techniques that extract terrain information and analyze traversability for off-road navigation of an unmanned robot. In this paper, we examine the use of 3D world models(terrain maps) to classify obstacle and safe terrain for increasing the reliability of the proposed techniques. A world model is divided into several patches and each patch is classified as belonging either to an obstacle or a non-obstacle using three types of metrics. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified on real terrain maps.