Minimum-Energy Robotic Exploration: A Formulation and an Approach

This technical correspondence is concerned with the problem of autonomous robot exploration in a 3-D world. It provides a better understanding of exploration problems with regard to their mathematical formulation, and present a means to evaluate the performance of future algorithms designed to solve it. In addition, an approach capable of being implemented on articulated robotic systems is proposed. The presented algorithm possesses completeness properties, and typically chooses navigation paths that increase the robot's knowledge of its environment while expending minimal energy. It is compared to other exploration approaches capable of being implemented on high-degree-of-freedom robots. The comparison, performed in simulation, shows the significance of reducing energy during the exploration process.