Fusion of sensor data in a dynamic representation

The task of moving a robot in a complex and totally or partially unknown environment involves the construction of a suitable representation of the robot's surroundings. This paper proposes an analogical statistical representation of the world the robot moves in. Its construction, updating and usage is described, focusing on the techniques used for the integration of sensor data and on their fusion with a priori information about the environment. An additional mechanism that allows the map to be efficiently transmitted to a remote workstation, connected using a radio link, has also been envisaged. Thus the computational load of map related processes can be distributed, taking advantage of the remote station's computational power. The experimental setup and some results obtained are also illustrated.