Mobility Reconfiguration for Terrain Exploration using Active Vision

The ability of robotic units to navigate various §terrains is critical to the advancement of robotic §operation in real world environments. Next §generation robots will need to adapt to their §environment in order to accomplish tasks that are §either too hazardous, too time consuming, or §physically impossible for human-beings. Such tasks §may include accurate and rapid explorations of §various planets or potentially dangerous areas on §planet Earth. This book investigates a §navigation control methodology for a wheel-legged §robot based on active vision. The method presented §is designed to control the reconfigurability of the §robot (i.e. control the usage of the wheels and §legs), depending upon the obstacle/terrain, based on §perception. Surface estimation for robot §reconfigurability is implemented using a region §growing method and a characterization and §traversability assessment generated from camera §data. As a result, a mathematical approach that §directs necessary navigation behavior is implemented §to control robot mobility. The analysis and results§should be useful to professionals interested in the§future of Robotics and its potential impact on society.