Robot Navigation for Automatic Model Construction Using Safe Regions

Automatic model construction is a core problem in mobile robotics. To solve this task efficiently, we need a motion strategy to guide a robot equipped with a range sensor through a sequence of "good" observations. Such a strategy is generated by an algorithm that repeatedly computes locations where the robot must perform the next sensing operation. This is called the next-best view problem. In practice, however, several other considerations must be taken into account. Of these, two stand out as decisive. One is the problem of safe navigation given incomplete knowledge about the robot surroundings. The second one is the issue of guaranteeing the alignment of multiple views, closely related to the problem of robot self-localization. The concept of safe region proposed in this paper makes it possible to simultaneously address both problems.