Hybrid mapping for autonomous mobile robot exploration

Hybrid maps combining several approaches to store robot's interpretation about its working environments are getting popular nowadays. The paper deals with a novel approach to hybrid maps that is based on fixed-size interconnected occupancy grids organized in a topological graph. The presented mapping approach is employed in the exploration scenario, where the map is built from scratch and used for both local and global path-planning, and goal selection. Feasibility of the approach has been validated by a set of experiments in the Player/Stage system [1].