Multi-Robot Tools and Techniques for Exploration and Mobile Surveying

无论是在地球上还是在地球以外的地方工作，获得有关工作环境的准确和及时的地理空间信息对于规划、生产力和安全至关重要。 例如，绘制岩体中的不连续面是设计采矿中适当的地面支撑系统或了解火星地质过程的重要投入。 然而，用于地理空间勘测和绘图的大多数当代工具仍然是高度手动的，利用固定平台（例如，安装在三脚架上），并且因此显著地依赖于人类操作员的物理存在和输入。 大多数技术还依赖于一次仅来自一个源的数据以及用于地理定位的基于卫星的GPS信息的可用性，这通常是不实际的（例如，地下挖掘）。 该应用的本质源于这样的认识，即在将来自当代现场机器人的思想与远程、恶劣、不确定和非结构化环境中的地理空间勘测和测绘的真实的问题相结合方面存在重大且未探索的机会，在这些环境中，人类的存在要么是不可能的，要么以某种方式受到阻碍，要么是非常不受欢迎的（例如，在遥远的北方，在其他星球上）。

Whether working on Earth or beyond, access to accurate and timely geospatial information about one's operating environment is critical to matters of planning, productivity, and safety.  For example, mapping of the discontinuity planes in a rock mass is an important input to the process of designing appropriate ground support systems in mining, or for understanding geological processes on Mars.  Yet, most contemporary tools for geospatial surveying and mapping remain highly manual, utilize stationary platforms (e.g., are tripod-mounted), and thus depend significantly on physical presence of and input by human operators.  Most techniques also rely on data from only one source at a time and on the availability of satellite-based GPS information for geolocation, which is often not practical (e.g., in underground excavations).  The essence of this application is born from the realization that there exists a significant and unexplored opportunity in the combination of ideas from contemporary field robotics with the real problems of geospatial surveying and mapping in remote, harsh, uncertain, and unstructured environments where human presence is either not possible, hindered in some way, or highly undesirable (e.g., deep underground, far north, on other planets).