Assistive Navigation using a Hierarchical Model of the Environment

This paper presents an application of a hierarchical, symbolic model of large-scale space for representing the environment of a robotic wheelchair that has been automatized for assistance to mobility impaired people. Rehabilitation robotics has an issue that is not present in mobile robotics: the need for an interface with the human driver. Our hierarchical model demonstrates its suitability to represent the environment in a structure easily manageable by the human (it serves as a good interface with the human’s cognitive map) and at the same time its better performance than flat topological maps in route planning. The paper describes and illustrates an experiment in which the wheelchair, with the assistance of the person, builds its model of space and uses it for autonomous navigation.

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