Real-Time Continuous Euclidean Distance Fields for Large Indoor Environments

Sammanfattning: Real-time spatial awareness is essential in areas such as robotics and autonomous navigation. However, as environments expand and become increasingly complex, maintaining both a low computational load and high mapping accuracy remains a significant challenge. This thesis addresses these challenges by proposing a novel method for real-time construction of continuous Euclidean distance fields (EDF) using Gaussian process (GP) regression, hereafter referred to as GP-EDF, tailored specifically for large indoor environments. The proposed approach focuses on leveraging the inherent structural information of indoor spaces by partitioning them into rooms and constructing a local GP-EDF model for each, reducing the computational cost tied to large matrix operations in GPs. By also exploiting the geometric regularities commonly found in indoor spaces it detects walls and represents them as line segments. This information is integrated into the models’ priors to both improve accuracy and further reduce the computational expense. Comparison with two baselines demonstrated the proposed approach’s effectiveness. It maintained low computation times despite increasing amounts of sensor data, signifying a significant improvement in scalability. Results also confirmed that the EDF quality remains high and isn’t affected by partitioning the GP-EDF into local models. The method also reduced the influence of sensor noise on the EDF’s accuracy when incorporating the line segments into the model. Additionally, the proposed room segmentation method proved to be efficient and generated accurately partitioned rooms, with a high degree of independence between them. In conclusion, the proposed approach offers a scalable, accurate and efficient solution for real-time construction of EDFs, demonstrating significant potential in aiding autonomous navigation within large indoor spaces.