On localization and mapping with RGB-D sensor and hexapod walking robot in rough terrains

In this paper, we address a problem of precise online localization of a hexapod walking robot operating in rough terrains. We consider an existing Simultaneous Localization and Mapping approach with a low cost structured light (RGB-D) sensor. We propose to combine this sensor and localization method with the developed adaptive motion gait that allows the robot to crawl various types of terrain, such as stairs, ramps, or small wooden blocks. Such an environment requires a full 6-DOF pose estimation to create a map of the robot surroundings and allows us to asses impact of the individual terrain types and influence of the SLAM method parametrization on the localization accuracy. The reported evaluation results indicate the relations between the terrain type, parametrization of the method and the localization accuracy.