Autonomous determination of locations for observing home environment using a mobile robot

Abstract

The paper focuses on determining locations in a typical home environment formonitoring or observing the surroundings using an indoor mobile robot.Currently, these locations are manually selected for the robots. In the process of autonomously evaluating minimum number of key locations, the proposed methodology targets free spaces in the environment that may provide maximum observability to a mobile robot with limited range of sensor systems. The technique also ensures that these locations are at a distance from obstacles in the environment in order to guarantee sufficient space for robot navigation. The experiments have been performed both in real apartment using an autonomous mobile robot and in simulation with a variety of environments. The results demonstrate an area coverage of up to 96% with minimal locations computed in fairly acceptable time. These locations can be used in various scenarios like monitoring an elderly person in the home environment.