Mobile Robot Semantic Map Updates With Conflict Resolution
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous mobile robots face challenges in maintaining accurate semantic maps over time due to changes in their environment, leading to invalid semantics and conflicts between map updates, which can result in incorrect navigation and task execution.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for generating and managing semantic maps in mobile robots, involving a controller circuit that transfers and updates semantic annotations between missions, detects conflicts, and resolves them through algorithms or user interaction, ensuring semantic consistency and accuracy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the mobile robot continuously updates the semantic map with new occupancy information from multiple missions, then the map becomes more comprehensive and adaptive to environmental changes, but semantic conflicts and inconsistencies arise between map updates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary conflict detection and resolution by comparing semantic annotations from different missions before finalizing the updated semantic map. This prevents inconsistent semantics from being committed to the map, ensuring reliability while maintaining adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where semantic conflicts detected during map updates trigger resolution processes. The resolved semantics are then fed back into the map update, ensuring that the final map maintains consistency while incorporating new environmental information.
2Productivity
If the robot transfers semantic annotations from one mission to another, then navigation efficiency improves, but invalid semantics may propagate and cause incorrect task execution
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary validation of semantic annotations during the transfer process from one mission to another. By checking for validity before transfer, the system ensures that only accurate semantics are propagated, maintaining task execution accuracy while preserving navigation efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary validation layer between semantic annotation transfer and map update. This intermediary checks the validity of transferred semantics and resolves conflicts, ensuring that invalid semantics do not propagate to cause incorrect task execution.
3Measurement precision
If the system performs detailed conflict detection and resolution between semantic maps, then map accuracy improves, but computational time and processing resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the conflict detection and resolution process into distinct phases: initial quick comparison, detailed conflict analysis only where needed, and selective resolution. This segmentation maintains high map accuracy while reducing overall processing time by avoiding exhaustive analysis of entire maps.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs partial conflict detection by focusing only on regions where environmental changes are detected or where semantic conflicts are likely to occur, rather than exhaustively analyzing the entire semantic map. This maintains adequate map accuracy while significantly reducing processing time.
Data Source
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AI summary
Described herein are systems, devices, and methods for maintaining a valid semantic map of an environment for a mobile robot. A mobile robot comprises a drive system, a sensor circuit to sense occupancy information, a memory, a controller circuit, and a communication system. The controller circuit can generate a first semantic map corresponding to a first robot mission using first occupancy information and first semantic annotations, transfer the first semantic annotations to a second semantic map corresponding to a subsequent second robot mission. The control circuit can generate the second semantic map that includes second semantic annotations generated based on the transferred first semantic annotations. User feedback on the first or the second semantic map can be received via a communication system. The control circuit can update first semantic map and use it to navigate the mobile robot in a future mission.