BUILDING A SONAR MAP IN A SPECULAR ENVIRONMENT USING A SINGLE MOBILE SENSOR

The physical properties of acoustic sensors are exploited to obtain information about the environment for sonar map building. A theoretical formulation is presented for interpreting the sensor data based on the physical principles of acoustic propagation and reflection. A novel characterization of the sonar scan is described that allows the differentiation of planes, corners, and edges in a specular environment. A single sensor mounted on an autonomous vehicle in our laboratory verifies the technique. The implication to sonar map building and the limitations of differentiating elements with one sensor are discussed.