Mapping in unknown graph-like worlds

Gregory Dudek, Paul Freedman, Souad Hadjres

Abstract: We consider the problem of constructing a map of an unknown environment by an autonomous agent such as a mobile robot. Because accurate positional information is often difficult to ensure, we consider the problem of exploration in the absence of metric (positional) information. Worlds are represented by graphs (not necessarily planar) consisting of a fixed number of discrete places linked by bidirectional paths. We assume the robot can consistently enumerate the edges leaving a vertex (that is, it can assign a cyclic ordering). A mobile robot is assigned the task of creating a topological map, i.e. a graph-like representation of the places in the world and their connectivity, by moving from place to place along the paths it encounters. It can detect edges and count them, but cannot directly sense the labels associated with a place or an edge. In principle, this type of representation could be used for non-spatial environments such as computer networks.

External IDs:dblp:journals/jfr/DudekFH96