MALOC – Medial Axis LOCalization in Unstructured and Dynamic Environments

Abstract

In this paper, the use of medial axis in mobile robot localization is extended. We describe the extraction of robust medial axis from a local occupancy grid to form a global map of the environment. We do not require any special geometric primitives to be present, and we allow substantial changes in the appearance of the environment, as long as the overall structure stays intact. We then describe how to use such a map with Monte Carlo Localization. Two approaches are treated. The first one relies on extracting salient features (tripods) from the local grid. The second one makes use of salient points in the global map and works well, even if no useful medial axis can be extracted during localization due to many new objects in formerly free space. This work aims to develop an efficient navigation system that requires less assumptions about the environment and its dynamics than current systems do.