14 accepted papers
Semantic object mapping in uncertain, perceptually degraded environments during long-range multi-robot autonomous exploration tasks such as search-and-rescue is important and challenging. During such missions, high recall is desirable to avoid missing true target objects and high precision is also c…
Due to their resilience to motion blur and high robustness in low-light and high dynamic range conditions, event cameras are poised to become enabling sensors for vision-based exploration on future Mars helicopter missions. However, existing event-based visual-inertial odometry (VIO) algorithms eith
Search and rescue with a team of heterogeneous mobile robots in unknown and large-scale underground environments requires high-precision localization and mapping. This crucial requirement is faced with many challenges in complex and perceptually-degraded subterranean environments, as the onboard per
Lidar odometry has attracted considerable attention as a robust localization method for autonomous robots operating in complex GNSS-denied environments. However, achieving reliable and efficient performance on heterogeneous platforms in large-scale environments remains an open challenge due to the l
Multi-robot SLAM systems in GPS-denied environments require loop closures to maintain a drift-free centralized map. With an increasing number of robots and size of the environment, checking and computing the transformation for all the loop closure candidates becomes computationally infeasible. In th
The autonomous approach of spacecraft to a small body (comet or asteroid) relies on using all available information at each phase of the approach. This letter presents new algorithms for global shape reconstructions from sparse tracked surface points. These methods leverage estimates from earlier ph
Authors Benjamin Morrell, Kamak Ebadi, Jeremy Nash and Aliakbar Agha-mohammadi in the above-named work [ibid., IEEE Robot. Automat. Lett., vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 421–428, Apr. 2020] were incorrectly affiliated with the Polytechnic University of Bari. The correct authors affiliations are reported in the
A reliable odometry source is a prerequisite to enable complex autonomy behaviour in next-generation robots operating in extreme environments. In this work, we present a high-precision lidar odometry system to achieve robust and real-time operation under challenging perceptual conditions. LOCUS (Lid
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is a critical part of robotic exploration in unknown environments. SLAM over large scales typically presents challenges with limiting drift and requires loop closures to correct accumulated errors. However, real-time loop closure detection can be limited
In recent years, unsupervised deep learning approaches have received significant attention to estimating the depth and visual odometry (VO) from unlabelled monocular image sequences. However, their performance is limited in challenging environments due to perceptual degradation, occlusions, and rapi…
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) in large-scale, unknown, and complex subterranean environments is a challenging problem. Sensors must operate in off-nominal conditions; uneven and slippery terrains make wheel odometry inaccurate, while long corridors without salient features make extero…
Robust autonomous flight without GPS is key to many emerging drone applications, such as delivery, search and rescue, and warehouse inspection. These and other applications require accurate trajectory tracking through cluttered static environments, where GPS can be unreliable, while high-speed, agil…
For autonomous quadrotors to be used for applications such as delivery, disaster response, and inspection, there is a need to fly near obstacles, especially in urban and indoor environments. Often, it is also beneficial to fly at high speeds to complete tasks quickly. A key challenge in enabling the
Aggressive maneuvering amongst obstacles could enable advanced capabilities for quadrotors in applications such as search and rescue, surveillance, inspection, and situations where rapid flight is required in cluttered environments. Previous works have treated quadrotors as differentially flat syste…