Determining A Direction- And Position-Agnostic Occupancy Probability And Occupancy Ratio From Maps of Obstacle Fields For Ground Vehicle Navigation

Robot path-planning is a central task for navigation and most path-planners perform well in mapped environments with explicit obstacle boundaries. However, many obstacle fields are better defined by the probability of obstacles and obstacle geometries rather than by explicit locations. Few tools and data structures exist, other than repeated simulations, to predict robot mobility in these situations. Previously, it was shown that geometric obstacle properties could be used to estimate properties of paths routing around these obstacles, looking only at maps and avoiding the task of path planning [1]. This required knowing obstacle geometries relative to travel direction. This work presents a method for representing obstacle geometry, at arbitrary orientations and positions, and therefore a probabilistic model for determining if space near an obstacle is occupied. This paper explains the theory behind this method, uses this method to calculate the portion of a straight path overlapped by obstacles, called linear occupancy ratio, from simulated obstacle fields, and compares these results to measured occupancy ratio values to validate the probabilistic model.

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Work Title Determining A Direction- And Position-Agnostic Occupancy Probability And Occupancy Ratio From Maps of Obstacle Fields For Ground Vehicle Navigation
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Stephen J. Harnett
  2. Sean Brennan
  3. Karl Reichard
  4. Jesse Pentzer
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Proceedings of the 2023 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium
Publication Date August 9, 2023
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.4271/2024-01-4061
Deposited April 14, 2025

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Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added Harnett_DeterminingADirectionAndPosition.pdf
  • Added Creator Stephen Harnett
  • Added Creator Sean N Brennan
  • Added Creator K M Reichard
  • Added Creator Jesse Pentzer
  • Added Creator Seth Tau
  • Added Creator David Gorsich
  • Published
  • Updated
  • Updated Subtitle, Publisher, Publisher Identifier (DOI), and 1 more Show Changes
    Subtitle
    • Proceedings of the 2023 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium
    Publisher
    • Proceedings of the 2023 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium
    Publisher Identifier (DOI)
    • https://doi.org/10.4271/2024-01-4061
    Publication Date
    • 2023-05-15
    • 2023-08-09
  • Deleted Creator Seth Tau
  • Deleted Creator David Gorsich
  • Renamed Creator Stephen J. Harnett Show Changes
    • Stephen Harnett
    • Stephen J. Harnett
  • Renamed Creator Sean Brennan Show Changes
    • Sean N Brennan
    • Sean Brennan
  • Renamed Creator Karl Reichard Show Changes
    • K M Reichard
    • Karl Reichard