Sphere-Graph: A Compact 3D Topological Map for Robotic Navigation and Segmentation of Complex Environments

Authors

Meryl Spencer, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
Reid W. Sawtell, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
Sarah Kitchen, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-18-2024

Department

Michigan Tech Research Institute

Abstract

Topological maps are a common framework for enabling autonomous robotic navigation. To be effective for robotic exploration the maps must be able to be generated quickly and compact enough to store on lightweight hardware. Here we propose a novel 3D topological map called Sphere-Graph which has adaptive edge lengths, can be quickly generated, and can be used to semantically identify hallways and rooms to produce a compact representation of complex environments. We give examples of the Sphere-Graph representation of large 3D urban and cave environments.

Publisher's Statement

© 2024 The Authors. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2024.3355735

Publication Title

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

Recommended Citation

Spencer, M., Sawtell, R. W., & Kitchen, S. (2024). Sphere-Graph: A Compact 3D Topological Map for Robotic Navigation and Segmentation of Complex Environments. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. http://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2024.3355735
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p2/430

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Version

Publisher's PDF