RB5 Low-Cost Explorer: Implementing Autonomous Long-Term Exploration on Low-Cost Robotic Hardware

TL;DR

This paper introduces RB5, a low-cost robotic platform capable of autonomous long-term exploration in GPS-denied environments using minimal sensors and hardware, achieved through a novel exploration methodology and communication protocol.

Contribution

The paper presents a new low-cost robotic system with a specialized exploration methodology that enables effective autonomous operation with minimal sensors and hardware.

Findings

Successful autonomous exploration in unknown environments

Effective long-range communication with low-power IoT technology

Feasibility demonstrated on low-cost hardware

Abstract

This systems paper presents the implementation and design of RB5, a wheeled robot for autonomous long-term exploration with fewer and cheaper sensors. Requiring just an RGB-D camera and low-power computing hardware, the system consists of an experimental platform with rocker-bogie suspension. It operates in unknown and GPS-denied environments and on indoor and outdoor terrains. The exploration consists of a methodology that extends frontier- and sampling-based exploration with a path-following vector field and a state-of-the-art SLAM algorithm. The methodology allows the robot to explore its surroundings at lower update frequencies, enabling the use of lower-performing and lower-cost hardware while still retaining good autonomous performance. The approach further consists of a methodology to interact with a remotely located human operator based on an inexpensive long-range and low-power communication technology from the internet-of-things domain (i.e., LoRa) and a customized communication protocol. The results and the feasibility analysis show the possible applications and limitations of the approach.