BIB-VERSION:: CS-TR-v2.0 ID:: ncstrl.dartmouthcs//TR98-336 ENTRY:: June 05, 1998 ORGANIZATION:: Dartmouth College, Computer Science TITLE:: Distributed Route Planning Using Partial Map Building TYPE:: Technical Report (paper) REVISION:: 1 AUTHOR:: Alvarado, Christine J. DATE:: June 1998 RETRIEVAL:: For a paper copy, email RETRIEVAL:: For a paper copy, write to Technical Report Librarian Department of Computer Science Dartmouth College 6211 Sudikoff Laboratory Hanover, NH 03755-3510 USA RETRIEVAL:: Compressed Postscript at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR98-336.ps.Z RETRIEVAL:: PDF at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR98-336.pdf 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 by ftp. END:: ncstrl.dartmouthcs//TR98-336