Computer Science Department
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
A System for Three-Dimensional Robotic
Mapping of Underground Mines
Michael Montemerlo, Dirk Hahnel, David Ferguson, Rudolph Triebel,
Wolfram Burgard, Scott Thayer, William Whittaker, Sebastian Thrun
October 2002
CMU-CS-02-185.ps
CMU-CS-02-185.ps.gz
CMU-CS-02-185.pdf
We describe two robotic systems for acquiring high-resolution
volumetric maps of underground mines. Our systems have been
deployed in an operational coal mine in Bruceton, Pennsylvania,
where they have been used to generate interactive 3-D maps. Our
approach includes a novel sensor head, assembled from multiple SICK
laser range finders, and a real-time algorithm for scan matching
that generates accurate volumetric maps. The scan matching algorithm
performs horizontal and vertical simultaneous localization and
mapping (SLAM). Data from the horizontal scans is used to remove
artifacts in the vertical scans, and vice versa. The system can
construct full 3-D volumetric maps hundreds of meters in diameter,
even when no odometry information is available.
17 pages
Return to:
SCS Technical Report Collection This page maintained by [email protected]
School of Computer Science homepage