Autonomous Road Sweeping of Large Public Areas

The hardware and software design of a robotic road sweeper is presented in this paper. The basic vehicle is a commercial road sweeper KMR 1200 manufactured by Alfred Kärcher GmbH, Germany. This vehicle has been redesigned and augmented by mechanical and electronic components to allow automatic control of both the drive system and the cleaning system. The road sweeper has been further equipped with a navigation system to support autonomous locomotion and operation of the vehicle. The system is intended to clean areas such as the parking space of supermarkets or airports, or factory premises and backyards. Although the system will not be operated during regular business hours, it is still requested to handle situations and events which typically occur in public environments. This includes unknown stationary obstacles such as palettes or containers with goods, vehicles parked or shopping carts left in the workspace but also moving objects, such as moving cars or people or animals walking or running across the parking space.