Autonome Sensorsonden für mobile Überwachungsroboter und deren Ausbringstrategien

The presented thesis deals with the enhancement of the use of mobile security and surveillance robots. By using autonomous sensor probes the simultaneously covered area respective borderline by security and surveillance robots can be increased significantly. This system includes sensor probes, deployment unit, which enables a security robot to place and recollect sensor probes, as well as algorithms to identify the best positions for the sensor probes depending on the use case. For the sensor probes an interface was invented that enables the deployment units both to compensate a potential offset in horizontal direction when recollecting the probes and to correct a potential rotation without the use of additional sensors or actors. Furthermore, commercially available components for the equipment of the sensor probes have been analyzed. For the deployment units an efficient concept for storage and handling of sensor probes, which reduces the use of sensors and actors to a minimum and manages probe handling with only one degree of freedom, was invented. In order to control the deployment units by the surveillance robot a controller has been developed which communicates over Ethernet. For the efficient placement of the probes two methods, Genetic algorithm and grid map with Greedy algorithm, have been chosen and adapted to the problem. With a specially developed simulation environment the parameters of both methods have been optimized and the results have been compared. In order to quantify the added value for security and surveillance robots by the use of sensor probes the value of average coverage was introduced. The comparison of the use of security and surveillance robots alone and in combination with sensor probes verified an enhancement by factors 4,3 to 7,5. Consequently an efficient extension for mobile security and surveillance robots has been developed, which significantly increases the surveillance performance