It can be argued that the "holy grail" of unmanned systems is autonomous operation; that is, a robot that can complete tasks without direct control by a human. Autonomous operation would fundamentally revolutionize our way of life, with robots finding widespread application in areas far beyond bomb-defusing and vacuum cleaning.
One of the most fundamental autonomous behaviors is navigation: getting from point A to point B without human intervention. While this may sound very simple (follow GPS breadcrumbs, right? Ha!) it is actually a very difficult problem. In real-world applications, one must contend with a variety of terrain, avoid obstacles, maintain rollover stability, manage power, and much more.
Solving the autonomous navigation problem will take a lot of engineering and technical breakthroughs in sensing and control (amongst other areas). Quantum Signal is developing math-based technologies to address these challenges and make autonomy a reality. Some of our current work includes:
- Visual Odometry – a technology for estimating robot position and orientation based on analysis of camera (vision) data
- Terrain Sensing – technologies for autonomously sensing and analyzing soil and terrain characteristics
- Mobility Prediction – leveraging sensed soil and terrain information and new, advanced algorithms to analyze robotic traversability
These capabilities are being integrated on a variety of robotic platforms to achieve real-world autonomous navigation capabilities. For more information, please contact us at robotics@quantumsignal.com
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