Autonomous Exploration in a Cluttered Environment for a Mobile Robot With 2D-Map Segmentation and Object Detection

Frontier-based exploration is widely adopted for exploring an unknown region. The conventional frontier-based exploration for a mobile robot may collide with three-dimensional (3D) obstacles or can suffer from a slower exploration time because the robot may move to another place before completely exploring the current area. To solve this problem, in this letter, we propose a new exploration algorithm by considering a path traveled by a mobile robot and segmenting a two-dimensional (2D) map. The segmented 2D map is generated in real-time by using the position of the robot and the location of the detected frontiers. To apply our algorithm to the actual experiment, we develop an object detection-based exploration algorithm that can remarkably reduce the probability of collision with 3D obstacles. To verify the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm, we perform simulations (Gazebo) and experiments (in the real world) to compare the conventional approach and our algorithm in a cluttered environment. The simulation and experiment results show that our algorithm can satisfactorily shorten the exploration path and time.