Distributed Route Planning Using Partial Map Building

Dartmouth Technical Report PCS-TR98-336

	Christine J. Alvarado

Date: June 1998

URL (compressed postscript): <http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR98-336.ps.Z> (716KB)

URL (PDF): <http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR98-336.pdf> (164KB)

Abstract:
   Our goal is to manipulate and guide an object across an unknown environment
 toward a goal in a known location in space.  Our tools include a system of
 manipulation robots, which are "blind" and one mobile scout robot who relies on
 a series of sonar sensors for information about the environment.  Previous
 solutions to this problem have taken a simultaneous guiding and manipulating
 approach, moving the whole system under the scout's guidance.  My approach,
 however, presents a separate scouting algorithm that can return a series of
 coordinates through which the manipulation system can safely pass to reach the
 goal in a static environment.  This new approach produces more optimal paths to
 the goal, as well as evading the concern of what actions to take should the
 entire system reach a dead end.  In this paper I will present both the
 algorithm and the experimental results I obtained when I built the scouting
 system.

Note:
 Senior Honors Thesis.  Advisor: Daniela Rus.
 Source code available 
 <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR98-336.code.tar.Z">by ftp</a>.