Denning Mobile Robot Company

RWI created the B-21, Nomadic the XR4000, whilst the tiny Khepera mobile robot emerged from the stables of the Swiss K-Team.

In June DARPA worked with SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego to distribute the units to 14 government and university research institutions.

These platforms can map buildings and navigate out-of-the-box, using SLAM and a variation on Monte Carlo method/Markov localization and modified value-iterated search, with any sensor of the 2-D range-finder class.

Evolution Robotics offers single-camera VSLAM software, which replaces range-finding with visual pattern-matching, but this system cannot create a human-readable map.

The K-Team Khepera, Segway-based platforms and other research robots can link to external computing resources to use such software.

Outdoors, localization is primarily handled with GPS, however, satellite signals can frequently be lost due to obstructions.

Dead reckoning relies on relative wheel motion and is subject to cumulative slippage errors.