Energy-Aware Mobile Robot Exploration with Adaptive Decision Thresholds

This paper presents an approach for energy efficient path planning during autonomous mobile robot exploration. The idea is for a robot to efficiently explore the environment and periodically return to the starting point of the exploration for recharging the battery. The focus is to reduce the overall travel path as locomotion is the largest energy consumer. Simulations show that the path can be reduced by more than 25 %. A proof of concept is developed to demonstrate the feasibility on hardware.