21 citations · 119 across the 36 of their papers we have counts for
39 papers
Towards Spatial Perception for Heterogeneous Robot Collaboration in Subterranean Mining Environments
Mario Alberto Valdes Saucedo, Akash Patel, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
The autonomous extraction of deep mineral deposits in abandoned underground mines is fundamentally a multi-agent integration problem. No single platform simultaneously offers the m…
Estimating Semantic Ambiguity via Gaussian Context Distributions for VLM-Driven Traversability Analysis
Ramona Häuselmann, Mario A. V. Saucedo, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
Autonomous navigation in unstructured environments requires robust scene understanding, yet Vision-Language Models (VLMs) often suffer from semantic ambiguity, where conflicting pr…
Safe Heterogeneous Multi-Agent RL with Communication Regularization for Coordinated Target Acquisition
Gabriele Calzolari, Vidya Sumathy, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
This paper introduces a decentralized multi-agent reinforcement learning framework enabling structurally heterogeneous teams of agents to jointly discover and acquire randomly loca…
Have We Scene It All? Scene Graph-Aware Deep Point Cloud Compression
Nikolaos Stathoulopoulos, Christoforos Kanellakis, George Nikolakopoulos
Efficient transmission of 3D point cloud data is critical for advanced perception in centralized and decentralized multi-agent robotic systems, especially nowadays with the growing…
Platform-Agnostic Reinforcement Learning Framework for Safe Exploration of Cluttered Environments with Graph Attention
Gabriele Calzolari, Vidya Sumathy, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
Autonomous exploration of obstacle-rich spaces requires strategies that ensure efficiency while guaranteeing safety against collisions with obstacles. This paper investigates a nov…
An Adaptive Inspection Planning Approach Towards Routine Monitoring in Uncertain Environments
Vignesh Kottayam Viswanathan, Yifan Bai, Scott Fredriksson +3
In this work, we present a hierarchical framework designed to support robotic inspection under environment uncertainty. By leveraging a known environment model, existing methods pl…
Collaborative Task Assignment, Sequencing and Multi-agent Path-finding
Yifan Bai, Shruti Kotpalliwar, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
In this article, we address the problem of collaborative task assignment, sequencing, and multi-agent pathfinding (TSPF), where a team of agents must visit a set of task locations…
A Hierarchical Graph-Based Terrain-Aware Autonomous Navigation Approach for Complementary Multimodal Ground-Aerial Exploration
Akash Patel, Mario A. V. Saucedo, Nikolaos Stathoulopoulos +4
Autonomous navigation in unknown environments is a fundamental challenge in robotics, particularly in coordinating ground and aerial robots to maximize exploration efficiency. This…
Estimating Commonsense Scene Composition on Belief Scene Graphs
Mario A. V. Saucedo, Vignesh Kottayam Viswanathan, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
This work establishes the concept of commonsense scene composition, with a focus on extending Belief Scene Graphs by estimating the spatial distribution of unseen objects. Specific…
SPADE: Towards Scalable Path Planning Architecture on Actionable Multi-Domain 3D Scene Graphs
Vignesh Kottayam Viswanathan, Akash Patel, Mario Alberto Valdes Saucedo +3
In this work, we introduce SPADE, a path planning framework designed for autonomous navigation in dynamic environments using 3D scene graphs. SPADE combines hierarchical path plann…
An Addendum to NeBula: Towards Extending TEAM CoSTAR's Solution to Larger Scale Environments
Ali Agha, Kyohei Otsu, Benjamin Morrell +86
This paper presents an appendix to the original NeBula autonomy solution developed by the TEAM CoSTAR (Collaborative SubTerranean Autonomous Robots), participating in the DARPA Sub…
A Graph-Based Reinforcement Learning Approach with Frontier Potential Based Reward for Safe Cluttered Environment Exploration
Gabriele Calzolari, Vidya Sumathy, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
Autonomous exploration of cluttered environments requires efficient exploration strategies that guarantee safety against potential collisions with unknown random obstacles. This pa…
A Minimal Subset Approach for Informed Keyframe Sampling in Large-Scale SLAM
Nikolaos Stathoulopoulos, Christoforos Kanellakis, George Nikolakopoulos
Typical LiDAR SLAM architectures feature a front-end for odometry estimation and a back-end for refining and optimizing the trajectory and map, commonly through loop closures. Howe…
Investigating the Impact of Communication-Induced Action Space on Exploration of Unknown Environments with Decentralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Gabriele Calzolari, Vidya Sumathy, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
This paper introduces a novel enhancement to the Decentralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (D-MARL) exploration by proposing communication-induced action space to improve th…
Reinforcement Learning Driven Multi-Robot Exploration via Explicit Communication and Density-Based Frontier Search
Gabriele Calzolari, Vidya Sumathy, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
Collaborative multi-agent exploration of unknown environments is crucial for search and rescue operations. Effective real-world deployment must address challenges such as limited i…
An Actionable Hierarchical Scene Representation Enhancing Autonomous Inspection Missions in Unknown Environments
Vignesh Kottayam Viswanathan, Mario Alberto Valdes Saucedo, Sumeet Gajanan Satpute +2
In this article, we present the Layered Semantic Graphs (LSG), a novel actionable hierarchical scene graph, fully integrated with a multi-modal mission planner, the FLIE: A First-L…
xFLIE: Leveraging Actionable Hierarchical Scene Representations for Autonomous Semantic-Aware Inspection Missions
Vignesh Kottayam Viswanathan, Mario A. V. Saucedo, Sumeet Gajanan Satpute +2
We present a novel architecture aimed towards incremental construction and exploitation of a hierarchical 3D scene graph representation during semantic-aware inspection missions. I…
A Surface Adaptive First-Look Inspection Planner for Autonomous Remote Sensing of Open-Pit Mines
Vignesh Kottayam Viswanathan, Vidya Sumathy, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
In this work, we present an autonomous inspection framework for remote sensing tasks in active open-pit mines. Specifically, the contributions are focused towards developing a meth…
Why Sample Space Matters: Keyframe Sampling Optimization for LiDAR-based Place Recognition
Nikolaos Stathoulopoulos, Vidya Sumathy, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
Recent advances in robotics are driving real-world autonomy for long-term and large-scale missions, where loop closures via place recognition are vital for mitigating pose estimati…
Leveraging Computation of Expectation Models for Commonsense Affordance Estimation on 3D Scene Graphs
Mario A. V. Saucedo, Nikolaos Stathoulopoulos, Akash Patel +2
This article studies the commonsense object affordance concept for enabling close-to-human task planning and task optimization of embodied robotic agents in urban environments. The…
BOX3D: Lightweight Camera-LiDAR Fusion for 3D Object Detection and Localization
Mario A. V. Saucedo, Nikolaos Stathoulopoulos, Vidya Sumathy +2
Object detection and global localization play a crucial role in robotics, spanning across a great spectrum of applications from autonomous cars to multi-layered 3D Scene Graphs for…
STAGE: Scalable and Traversability-Aware Graph based Exploration Planner for Dynamically Varying Environments
Akash Patel, Mario A V Saucedo, Christoforos Kanellakis +1
In this article, we propose a novel navigation framework that leverages a two layered graph representation of the environment for efficient large-scale exploration, while it integr…
Belief Scene Graphs: Expanding Partial Scenes with Objects through Computation of Expectation
Mario A. V. Saucedo, Akash Patel, Akshit Saradagi +2
In this article, we propose the novel concept of Belief Scene Graphs, which are utility-driven extensions of partial 3D scene graphs, that enable efficient high-level task planning…
Event Camera and LiDAR based Human Tracking for Adverse Lighting Conditions in Subterranean Environments
Mario A. V. Saucedo, Akash Patel, Rucha Sawlekar +4
In this article, we propose a novel LiDAR and event camera fusion modality for subterranean (SubT) environments for fast and precise object and human detection in a wide variety of…