Research

• providing reference implementations for spatial calculi from the QSR community
• making specifying and integrating new calculi easy
• providing typical procedures required to apply QSR in a convenient way
• offering a uniform interface that allows straighforward switching between calculi
• being easily integrable into own applications

Qualitative Spatial Reasoning

Qualitative Spatial Calculi Doublecross Calculus Oriented Point Relation Algebra (OPRA) Ternary Point Configuration Calculus (TPCC) Dipole Relation Algebra Granular Point Configuration Calculus (SFB Technical Report)

• We investigate several algorithms for reasoning with ternary relation systems with respect to their complexity and properties of the obtained result.

• Basic Definitions for Unary and Binary Transformations on Relations
• The Robot Control Language Golog
• Neighborhood Based Reasoning

We are investigating the application of qualitative spatial representation formalisms and reasoning (QSR) techniques to formalize right-of-way rules in sea naviagation. The goal is to employ the formalized rule sets and developed reasoning methods in order to control agents and reason about complete rule sets.

Shape information about the environment is accessible to a mobile equipped with a laser range finder and it provides robust and detailed information. We demonstrate that a spatial representation based on shape information is advantageous for mobile robots.

We investigate the construction of hierarchically organized topological representations based on the Voronoi diagram of the environment and their application for navigation, planning, and communication for mobile robots.