Simulating Autonomous Sidewalk Navigation to Accessibility Issues Using Project Sidewalk Data
Motivation
Urban accessibility issues are hard to detect and repair at scale
Must automate navigation and repair of issues like surface problems and missing curb ramps
Long-term vision
Identify issue geometry
Repair issue
Robot will navigate to predetermined issue location, characterize the surface of the issue, and fabricate a solution to fill the accessibility problem
Path Planning
Transfer of Control
Nav on sidewalk
Setpoint reached
Avoid obstacle
Wait
Align to sidewalk
Obstacle detected
Red light within threshold
Drift from sidewalk
Move to target
Setpoint reached
Turn to target
Sensor Integration
Distance sensors 🡪 obstacle avoidance
Camera 🡪 sidewalk alignment
GPS 🡪 path creation; waypoint localization
IMU 🡪 robot rotation
System Overview
Fetch issues from Project Sidewalk API
Generate adjacency map
A* path generation to waypoints
Render data in Webots simulation environment
Robot control loop integrated with sensor data
Simulation Environment
Render Open Street Maps data and Project Sidewalk
accessibility issue markers in Webots environment
Iris Litiu, Daniel Campos Zamora, Jon Froehlich
Watch a navigation demo!