Autonomous Geocaching: Navigation and Goal Finding in Outdoor Domains James Neufeld Jason Roberts Stephen Walsh University of Alberta University of Alberta University of Alberta 114 St - 89 Ave 114 St - 89 Ave 114 St - 89 Ave Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton, Alberta
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Michael Sokolsky Adam Milstein Michael Bowling University of Alberta University of Waterloo University of Alberta 114 St - 89 Ave 200 University Avenue West 114 St - 89 Ave Edmonton, Alberta Waterloo, Ontario Edmonton, Alberta
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT ticipants use a handheld GPS to aid in ¯nding an object This paper describes an autonomous robot system designed hidden in an unknown environment given only the object's to solve the challenging task of geocaching. Geocaching GPS coordinates. Typically the objects are placed in unde- involves locating a goal object in an outdoor environment veloped areas with no obvious roads or paths. Natural ob- given only its rough GPS position. No additional informa- stacles along with the lack of any map of the terrain make tion about the environment such as road maps, waypoints, it a challenging navigation problem even for humans. In ad- or obstacle descriptions is provided, nor is there often a sim- dition, due to the error in GPS position estimates, a search ple straight line path to the object. This is in contrast to is usually required to ¯nally locate the object even after the much of the research in robot navigation which often focuses GPS coordinate has been reached.