Automatic Mapping of Dynamic Office Environments

Abstract

We present a robot, InductoBeast, that greets a new office building by learning the floorplan automatically, with minimal human intervention and a priori knowledge. Our robot architecture is unique because it combines aspects of both abductive and inductive mapping methods to solve this problem. We present experimental results spanning three ofiice environments, mapped and navigated during normal business hours. We hope these results help to establish a performance benchmark against which robust and adaptive mapping robots of the future may be measured.