Autonomous navigation system for exhibition hall service robots via laser SLAM

As an important tool for guiding and introducing visitors to the exhibition hall, the service robot needs to confront the complex environment existed and the constantly moving visitors. It is needed to have the ability to enable accurate positioning and navigation as well as dynamic obstacle avoidance. In recent years, simultaneous localization and mapping technology has been widely used to address localization and navigation issues in unknown indoor environments. Combining the service robot’s inertial measurement unit with other sensors to map the exhibition hall environment by the Cartographer SLAM algorithm, environmental information is collected by two-dimensional laser lidar. The path planning and dynamic obstacle are also achieved by the Cartographer simultaneous localization and mapping algorithm. The \({A^*}\) algorithm is selected for global path planning and the dynamic window approach algorithm for local path planning. The environment map construction, path planning and dynamic obstacle avoidance functions are verified by simulation and experiments in real environment. The average position deviation and standard deviation of the robot are less than 7cm and 3cm, respectively, when the robot is set to move at 0.5m/s. The average heading deviation is less than \({9^ \circ }\)and standard deviation is less than \({3^ \circ }\). The robot's positioning and navigation can well meet the working requirements of the pavilion service robot.