Dynamic replanning in uncertain environments for a sewer inspection robot

Abstract

The sewer inspection robot MAKRO is an autonomous multi-segment robot with worm-like shape driven by wheels. It is currently under development in the project MAKRO-PLUS. The robot has to navigate autonomously within sewer systems. Its first tasks will be to take water probes, analyze it onboard, and measure positions of manholes and pipes to detect polluted-loaded sewage and to improve current maps of sewer systems. One of the challenging problems is the controller software, which should enable the robot to navigate in the sewer system and perform the inspection tasks autonomously, not inflicting any self-damage. This paper focuses on the route planning and replanning aspect of the robot. The robot's software has four different levels, of which the planning system is the highest level, and the remaining three are controller levels each with a different degree of abstraction. The planner coordinates the sequence of actions that are to be successively executed by the robot.