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在远程、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中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，该研究计划的长期目标是为“移动的”测量和地理空间数据收集开发工程基础，并应用于采矿和远程勘探活动;即，以创建新的可证明的、鲁棒的和实用的算法，其实现了对现有技术的显著改进，现有技术没有利用移动的设备的使用和/或缺乏从工程角度的开发。 特别地，本研究集中于多机器人定位和映射问题，该问题结合了环境的联合收割机特征（例如，下伏地质结构），同时具有多个移动的平台相对于固定勘测设备提供的额外灵活性。 该计划将资助主要是硕士（3）和博士（2）学生完成，以发展相关技能（例如，系统建模、仿真和机器人技术）通过计划用于该资助申请所覆盖的时期的两个短期研究链：1）技术链将建立独立于两种类型的可用移动的平台（例如，地面、空气、水），并且尽可能独立于可用的传感器类型（例如，相机、激光雷达）;以及，2）工具链将通过开发至少一个与采矿中的岩体表征相关的实际示例来重点验证该研究。 反过来，这项工作将有助于基础研究的主体，适用于一系列工程应用，不仅包括行星和采矿作业，还可能包括土木工程和安全机器人。

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).The long-term objective of this research program is to develop an engineering basis for "mobile" surveying and geospatial data collection, with applications in mining and remote exploration activities; i.e., to create new provable, robust, and practical algorithms that achieve marked improvement over existing techniques that do not exploit the use of mobile equipment and/or lack development from an engineering point of view.  In particular, this research focuses on multi-robot localization and mapping problems that combine features of the environment (e.g., underlying geological structures) with the additional flexibility that multiple mobile platforms afford over stationary surveying devices.  This program will fund to completion mostly Master's (3) and PhD (2) students to develop relevant skills (e.g., system modelling, simulation, and robotics) through two short-term research strands that are are planned for the period covered by this grant application: 1) a techniques strand will establish a fundamental framework for mobile robotic surveying that is independent of both the types of mobile platforms available (e.g., ground, air, water) and, as much as possible, independent of the types of sensors available (e.g., cameras, LiDAR); and, 2) a tools strand will focus on validating this research through the development of at least one practical example related to rock mass characterization in mining.  This work, in turn, will contribute to a body of basic research that is suitable to a spectrum of engineering applications, including not only planetary and mining operations, but possibly also civil engineering and security robotics.