スケッチからの探索：事前地図を用いた大規模環境でのUAV探査の高速化
Explore From Sketch: Accelerating UAV Exploration in Large-scale Environments with Prior Maps
大規模で複雑な環境でのUAV自律探査の効率を向上させるため、不正確で不完全な2D事前地図を活用する新しい探査フレームワークを提案。LiDAR観測と事前地図の頑健な位置合わせと、階層的な視点計画戦略により、探索経路を最適化する。
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著者: Tiancheng Lai, Yuman Gao, Xiangyu Li, Ruitian Pang, Xingpeng Wang, Siqi Shen, Mengke Zhang, Yin He, Fei Gao, Chao Xu, Yanjun Cao
分類: cs.RO
原文アブストラクト
Autonomous exploration with UAVs in large-scale, topologically complex environments often suffers from low efficiency due to suboptimal scheduling and detours. Prior maps (e.g., construction drawings), although usually imprecise and flawed, are readily available in many scenarios and have the potential to provide global structural guidance. This paper presents a novel exploration framework that leverages sparse, unaligned, and even discrepant 2D prior maps for LiDAR-based UAV exploration. First, a robust 2D-3D point cloud registration pipeline is proposed to align LiDAR observations with prior maps. The registration pipeline combines a GeoContext descriptor for single-frame candidate retrieval, a multi-frame verification mechanism for coarse transformation estimation with outlier rejection, and a Scale-ICP algorithm for refinement. The registration module can handle map discrepancies and provide multiple hypotheses when geometric ambiguities arise. To effectively utilize the registration results for exploration planning, we further develop a hierarchical viewpoint planning strategy under localization uncertainties. The hierarchical strategy first spatially attaches local viewpoints to prior guidepoints and adopts a Monte Carlo Tree Search solver to determine their traversal sequence under each registration hypothesis. To mitigate registration uncertainty, a risk-aware selector evaluates prior sequences using confidence-weighted travel risk, and a fixed-endpoint traveling salesman problem is formulated to generate an efficient local coverage path under the selected prior guidance. Benchmark evaluations reveal up to 34.2% improvement in exploration efficiency and 37.9% reduction in flight distance compared to state-of-the-art methods, while extensive simulations and field experiments further demonstrate robustness to prior map incompleteness and deformations.
