Publications by Nicola Tomatis

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This thesis presents a recent research on the problem of environmental modeling for both localization and map building for wheel-based, differential driven, fully autonomous and self-contained mobile robots. The robots behave in an indoor office environment. They have a multi-sensor setup where the encoders are used for odometry and two exteroperceptive sensors, a 360° laser scanner and a monocular vision system, are employed to perceive the surrounding. The whole approach is feature based meaning that inst

This paper presents the genesis of the Expo.02 robot. RoboX the tour guide robot has been built from the scratch for this project based on the experience of the Autonomous Systems Lab. The production of 11 of those machines has been guaranteed by a spin-off of the lab: BlueBotics SA. The goal was to maximize the autonomy and interactivity of the mobile platform while ensuring high robustness, reliability and performance. The result is an interactive moving machine which can operate in human environments and

This paper presents a solution to the Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) problem in the stochastic map framework for a mobile robot navigating in an indoor environment. The approach is based on the concept of the relative map. The idea consists in introducing a map state, which only contains quantities invariant under translation and rotation. This is done in order to have a decoupling between the robot motion and the landmark estimation and therefore not to rely the landmark estimation on the unm

The Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) is engaged in mobile robotics research. The lab s research focuses mainly on indoor localization and map building, outdoor locomotion and navigation, and micro mobile robotics. In the framework of a research project on mobile robot localization, a graphical web interface for our indoor robots has been developed. The purpose of this interface is twofold: it serves as a tool for task supervision for the researcher, and for

Programming efficient and reliable code can be considered a non-trivial task, as it requires deep understanding of the problem to be solved along with good programming skills. However, software frameworks and programming paradigms can provide a dependable infrastructure upon which better programs can be written and deployed. This allows engineers to focus mainly on their task, while relying on the underlying run-time environment for taking care of low-level programming issues, such as memory allocation and

This paper discusses mobile robot localization by means of geometric features from a laser range finder and a CCD camera. The features are line segments from the laser scanner and vertical edges from the camera. Emphasis is put on sensor models with a strong physical basis. For both sensors, uncertainties in the calibration and measurement process are adequately modeled and propagated through the feature extractors. This yields observations with their first order covariance estimates which are passed to an

In this paper an approach for localization using geometric features from a 360 degree laser range finder and a monocular vision system is presented. Its practicability under conditions of continuous localization during motion in real-time (referred to as on-the-fly localization) is investigated in large-scale experiments. The features are infinite horizontal lines for the laser and vertical lines for the camera. They are extracted using physically well-grounded models for all sensors and passed to a Kalman

Progress in mobile robotics requires the researchers to access and improve all modules that compose the robot, from low-level mechanical components to high-level reasoning systems. This paper presents the development process of the robots built at the Autonomous Systems Lab, EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland. Starting from the mechanical and electrical design up to the application, we show the challenges that needed to be faced as well as the solutions that have been devised. The description covers aspects like th

This chapter describes an approach for indoor spatial representation, which is used to model the environment for the navigation of a fully autonomous robot. The metric and topological paradigms are integrated in a hybrid system for both localization and ma ...

In this paper simultaneous localization and map building is performed with a hybrid, metric - topological, approach. A global topological map connects local metric maps, allowing a compact environment model, which does not require global metric consistency and permits both precision and robustness. However, the most important innovation of the approach is the way how loops in the environment are handled by map building using the information of the multi hypotheses topological localization. The method uses d

In this paper a new localization approach combining the metric and topological paradigm is presented. The main idea is to connect local metric maps by means of a global topological map. This allows a compact environment model which does not require global metric consistency and permits both precision and robustness. The method uses a 360 degree laser scanner in order to extract lines for the metric localization and doors, discontinuities and hallways for the topological approach. The approach has been widel

This paper starts with a discussion of the open challenges in the SLAM problem. In our opinion they can be grouped in two main and distinct areas: convergence of the built map and computation requirement for real world application. To deal with the previous problems, a solution in the stochastic map framework based on the concept of the relative map is proposed. The idea consists in introducing a map state, which only contains quantities invariant under shift and rotation and to carry out the estimation of

In this paper an approach combining the metric and topological paradigm for simultaneous localization and map building is presented. The main idea is to connect local metric maps by means of a global topological map. This allows a compact environment model which does not require global metric consistency and permits both precision and robustness. The method uses a 360 degree laser scanner in order to extract corners and openings for the topological approach and lines for the metric localization. The approac

In this paper the metric and topological paradigm are integrated in a single system for both localization and map building. A global topological map connects local metric maps, allowing a compact environment model, which does not require global metric consistency and permits both precision and robustness. Furthermore, the approach permits to handle loops in the environment by automatic mapping using the information of the multimodal topological localization. The system uses a 360 degree laser scanner to ext

Starting from a user point of view the paper discusses the requirements of a development environment (operating system and programming language) for mechatronic systems, especially mobile robots. We argue that user requirements from research, education, ergonomics and applications impose a certain functionality on the embedded operating system and programming language, and that a deadline-driven real-time operating system helps to fulfil these requirements. A case study of the operating system XO/2, its pro

This paper presents a navigation framework which enables multiple mobile robots to attain individual goals, coordinate their actions and work safely and reliably in a highly dynamic environment. We give an overview of the framework architecture, its layering and the subsystems reactive obstacle avoidance, local path planning, global path planning, multi-robot planning and localization. The latter receives particular attention as the localization problem is a key issue for navigation in unmodified and diffic

In this paper a multisensor setup for localization consisting of a 360 degree laser range finder and a monocular vision system is presented. Its practicability under conditions of continuous localization during motion in real-time (referred to as on-the-fly localization) is investigated in large-scale experiments. The features in use are infinite horizontal lines for the laser and vertical lines for the camera providing an extremely compact environment representation. They are extracted using physically wel

In this paper the metric and topological paradigms are integrated in a hybrid system for both localization and map building. A global topological map connects local metric maps, allowing a compact environment model, which does not require global metric consistency and permits both precision and robustness. Furthermore, the approach handles loops in the environment during automatic mapping by means of the information of the multimodal topological localization. The system uses a 360° laser scanner to extract

This paper presents the effort that has been undertaken in designing and building both hardware and software for a fully autonomous navigating vehicle aimed for a tour guide application. The challenge for such a project is to combine industrial high quality production for the mobile platforms with techniques for mobile robot navigation and interaction which are currently best available in academic research. For this the experience and technology of the Autonomous Systems Lab at EPFL has been extended with t

Navigation in unknown or partially unknown environments remains one of the biggest challenges in today's mobile robotics. Environmental modeling, perception, localization and mapping are all needed for a successful approach. The contribution of this paper ...

Nicola Tomatis

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Hybrid, metric - topological, mobile robot navigation

Design and System Integration for the Expo.02 Robot

SLAM with Corner Features Based on a Relative Map

Web Interfacing for Task Supervision and Specification

"May You Have a Strong (-Typed) Foundation", Why Strong-Typed Programming Languages Do Matter

Improving Robustness and Precision in Mobile Robot Localization by Using Laser Range Finding and Monocular Vision

Multisensor On-the-Fly Localization: Precision and Reliability for Applications

A Complex Mechatronic System: from Design to Application

Hybrid, metric-topological representation for localization and mapping

Hybrid Simultaneous Localization and Map Building: Closing the Loop with Multi-Hypotheses Tracking

An Hybrid Approach for Robust and Precise Mobile Robot Navigation with Compact Environment Modeling

Open Challenges in SLAM: An Optimal Solution Based on Shift and Rotation Invariants

Simultaneous Localization and Map Building: A Global Topological Model with Local Metric Maps

Combining Topological and Metric: A Natural Integration for Simultaneous Localization and Map Building

The Need for Autonomy and Real-Time in Mobile Robotics: A Case Study of XO/2 and Pygmalion

A Navigation Framework for Multiple Mobile Robots and its Application at the Expo.02 Exhibition

Multisensor On-the-Fly Localization Using Laser and Vision

Hybrid Simultaneous Localization and Map Building: a Natural Integration of Topological and Metric

Building a Fully Autonomous Tour Guide Robot: Where Academic Research Meets Industry

Topological Global Localization and Mapping with Fingerprint and Uncertainty