APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING TRAVELING AREA OF MOBILE ROBOT

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an apparatus and a method for determining a traveling area, which can correctly sort a front area of a mobile robot into a travelable area and an untravelable area. SOLUTION: A processing section 30 for sorting a front side of a mobile robot R into a travelable area and an untravelable area executes the steps of: defining, at a boundary point position between multiple pieces of measure point data of profile data obtained with a laser range finder 11 of an external measuring section 10, a state variable according to whether or not the adjacent pieces of measure point data are in a same area, thereby expressing a given area division state of the profile data as one state of state spaces; using an evaluation function in consideration of variations from an approximate line obtained through least mean square approximation of a measure pont data group for which areas are divided in one state and continuity of similar areas to find an area division state with a maximum evaluation function by MCMC from among the state spaces; and evaluating geometric characteristics from measure point data within the divided area, thereby sorting the front side of the mobile robot R into the travelable area and the untravelable area. COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT