Robotic systems need advanced mobility capabilities to operate in complex, three-dimensional environments designed for human use, e.g., multi-level buildings. Incorporating some level of autonomy enables robots to operate robustly, reliably, and efficiently in such complex environments, e.g., automatically "returning home" if communication between an operator and robot is lost during deployment. This work presents a novel method that enables mobile robots to robustly operate in multi-level environments by making it possible to autonomously locate and climb a range of different staircases. We present results wherein a wheeled robot works together with a quadrupedal system to quickly detect different staircases and reliably climb them. The performance of this novel staircase detection algorithm that is able to run on the heterogeneous platforms is compared to the current state-of-the-art detection algorithm. We show that our approach significantly increases the accuracy and speed at which detections occur.

翻译：机器人系统需要在人类设计使用的复杂三维环境（如多层建筑）中具备高级移动能力。通过整合一定程度的自主性，机器人能够在复杂环境中实现稳健、可靠且高效的运行，例如在操作员与机器人通信中断时自动执行"返航"功能。本文提出一种新颖方法，使移动机器人能够自主定位并攀爬多种楼梯，从而在多层环境中实现稳健运行。我们展示了轮式机器人协同四足系统快速检测不同类型楼梯并可靠攀爬的实验结果。该新型楼梯检测算法可在异构平台上运行，其性能与当前最先进的检测算法进行了比较。结果表明，我们的方法显著提高了检测的准确性和速度。