Construction of the generalized Voronoi diagram of the unknown environment

A method to construct a generalized Voronoi diagram of the unknown planar environment, populated by obstacles of general shape, is presented. The construction of the diagram out of real data supplied by a laser scanner is described, which is based on several local GLVDs from various regions of the free space. GLVD is a structure which represents the locally visible free space around the robot. The method for systematical exploration of the unknown environment is also described in which local GLVDs are obtained.