SphereMap: Dynamic Multi-Layer Graph Structure for Rapid Safety-Aware UAV Planning

Abstract

A flexible topological representation consisting of a two-layer graph structure built on-board an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) by continuously filling the free space of an occupancy map with intersecting spheres is proposed in this \paper{}. Most state-of-the-art planning methods find the shortest paths while keeping the UAV at a pre-defined distance from obstacles. Planning over the proposed structure reaches this pre-defined distance only when necessary, maintaining a safer distance otherwise, while also being orders of magnitude faster than other state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, we demonstrate how this graph representation can be converted into a lightweight shareable topological-volumetric map of the environment, which enables decentralized multi-robot cooperation. The proposed approach was successfully validated in several kilometers of real subterranean environments, such as caves, devastated industrial buildings, and in the harsh and complex setting of the final event of the DARPA SubT Challenge, which aims to mimic the conditions of real search and rescue missions as closely as possible, and where our approach achieved the \nth{2} place in the virtual track.

References in corpus (7)

• Voxblox: Incremental 3D Euclidean Signed Distance Fields for On-Board MAV Planning
• The MRS UAV System: Pushing the Frontiers of Reproducible Research, Real-world Deployment, and Education with Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• Large-Scale Exploration of Cave Environments by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
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• UAVs Beneath the Surface: Cooperative Autonomy for Subterranean Search and Rescue in DARPA SubT
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Cited by in corpus (7)

• MRS Drone: A Modular Platform for Real-World Deployment of Aerial Multi-Robot Systems
• A Tree-based Next-best-trajectory Method for 3D UAV Exploration
• EPIC: A Lightweight LiDAR-Based UAV Exploration Framework for Large-Scale Scenarios
• UAVs Beneath the Surface: Cooperative Autonomy for Subterranean Search and Rescue in DARPA SubT
• Multi-Robot Multi-Room Exploration with Geometric Cue Extraction and Circular Decomposition
• Cooperative Indoor Exploration Leveraging a Mixed-Size UAV Team with Heterogeneous Sensors
• GSRM: Building Roadmaps for Query-Efficient and Near-Optimal Path Planning Using a Reaction Diffusion System