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：摘要：机器人系统需要在为人类设计的三维复杂环境（例如多层建筑）中运行，必须具备先进的机动能力。引入一定程度的自主性可使机器人在此类复杂环境中稳健、可靠且高效地运行，例如在操作员与机器人通信中断时自动"返航"。本文提出一种新颖方法，使移动机器人能够通过自主定位并攀爬多种不同类型的楼梯，从而在多层环境中稳健运行。我们展示了轮式机器人与四足系统协同工作的结果：快速检测不同楼梯并可靠攀爬。该新型楼梯检测算法能够在异构平台上运行，其性能与当前最先进的检测算法进行了对比。研究表明，我们的方法显著提高了检测的准确性和速度。