snowBOTs: a mobile robot on snow covered ice

We introduce snowBOTs as a generic name for robots working in snow. This paper is a study on using scanning range measuring lasers towards an autonomous snow-cleaning robot, working in an environment consisting almost entirely of snow and ice. The problem addressed here is using lasers for detecting the edges generated by "the snow meeting the road". First the laser data were filtered using histogram/median to discriminate against falling snowflakes and small objects. Then the road surface was extracted using the range weighted Hough/Radon transform. Finally the left and right edges of the road was detected by thresholding. Tests have been made with a laser on top of a car driven in an automobile test range just south of the Arctic Circle. Moreover, in the campus area, the algorithms were tested in closed loop with the laser on board a robotized wheelchair.