Mapping
The following video illustrates the steps involved in constructing a map. The resulting map is used for waypoint seeking and person following behaviors. It is also used as the simulated environment for evolving a neural-network-based robot controller:
Map Making: The stages of map building include: 1) A robot exploring the environment to produce an occupancy grid; 2) Skeletonization of the map to determine its basic structure; 3) Identification of end points and intersections in the map skeleton; 4) End points and intersections are treated as nodes in a connected graph, while graph connections are defined using the skeleton structure; 5) The removal of nodes that are less than, or equal to 1/4 hallway width away from walls or other nodes, producing a minimized graph-based representation of the environment; 6) Creation of a reference array, which allows a robot to use its map coordinates to determine its nearest node on the graph-based map. The graph provides an efficient mechanism for allowing a waypoint's position to be changed on-line by a robot as the corresponding object of interest is tracked through the environment.