Fully autonomous planning and obstacle negotiation on rough terrain using behavior maps

To autonomously navigate on rough terrain is a challenging problem for mobile robots, requiring the ability to decide whether parts of the environment can be traversed or have to be bypassed, which is commonly known as obstacle negotiation (ON). In this video we show the robot's ability to map, detect and negotiate obstacles. The first part shows the robot exploring a test arena, that contains a pallet and a ramp, that have to be traversed. The second part demonstrates the autonomous stair climbing skill. The planning process uses a new concept called behavior maps, that has been developed to support planning while integrating obstacle negotiation.