Key-Scan-Based Mobile Robot Navigation: Integrated Mapping, Planning, and Control Using Graphs of Scan Regions

Safe autonomous navigation in a priori unknown environments is an essential skill for mobile robots to reliably and adaptively perform diverse tasks (e.g., delivery, inspection, and interaction) in unstructured cluttered environments. Hybrid metric-topological maps, constructed as a pose graph of local submaps, offer a computationally efficient world representation for adaptive mapping, planning, and control at the regional level. In this paper, we consider a pose graph of locally sensed star-convex scan regions as a metric-topological map, with star convexity enabling simple yet effective local navigation strategies. We design a new family of safe local scan navigation policies and present a perception-driven feedback motion planning method through the sequential composition of local scan navigation policies, enabling provably correct and safe robot navigation over the union of local scan regions. We introduce a new concept of bridging and frontier scans for automated key scan selection and exploration for integrated mapping and navigation in unknown environments. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our key-scan-based navigation and mapping framework using a mobile robot equipped with a 360° laser range scanner in 2D cluttered environments through numerical ROS-Gazebo simulations and real hardware experiments.