Multi-Robot Tools and Techniques for Exploration and Mobile Surveying

无论是在地球上还是在其他地方工作，获取有关操作环境的准确、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持系统或了解火星上的地质过程的重要输入。然而，大多数当代地理空间测绘工具仍然是高度手动的，使用固定平台（例如，三脚架安装），因此在很大程度上依赖于人类操作员的物理存在和输入。大多数技术一次也只依赖于一个来源的数据，并依靠基于卫星的GPS信息来进行地理定位，这通常是不实际的（例如，在地下挖掘中）。这一应用程序的本质源于这样一种认识，即在将当代野外机器人的思想与偏远、恶劣、不确定和非结构化环境中的地理空间测绘的实际问题相结合时，存在着一个重要的、未被探索的机会，在这些环境中，人类的存在要么是不可能的，要么是以某种方式受到阻碍，要么是非常不受欢迎的（例如，地下深处，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).