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Hauptverfasser: Selvaraj, Nigitha, Mitrevski, Alex, Houben, Sebastian
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04086
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author Selvaraj, Nigitha
Mitrevski, Alex
Houben, Sebastian
author_facet Selvaraj, Nigitha
Mitrevski, Alex
Houben, Sebastian
contents Traditional indoor robot navigation methods provide a reliable solution when adapted to constrained scenarios, but lack flexibility or require manual re-tuning when deployed in more complex settings. In contrast, learning-based approaches learn directly from sensor data and environmental interactions, enabling easier adaptability. While significant work has been presented in the context of learning navigation policies, learning-based methods are rarely compared to traditional navigation methods directly, which is a problem for their ultimate acceptance in general navigation contexts. In this work, we explore the viability of imitation learning (IL) for indoor navigation, using expert (joystick) demonstrations to train various navigation policy networks based on RGB images, LiDAR, and a combination of both, and we compare our IL approach to a traditional potential field-based navigation method. We evaluate the approach on a physical mobile robot platform equipped with a 2D LiDAR and a camera in an indoor university environment. Our multimodal model demonstrates superior navigation capabilities in most scenarios, but faces challenges in dynamic environments, likely due to limited diversity in the demonstrations. Nevertheless, the ability to learn directly from data and generalise across layouts suggests that IL can be a practical navigation approach, and potentially a useful initialisation strategy for subsequent lifelong learning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_04086
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Are Learning-Based Approaches Ready for Real-World Indoor Navigation? A Case for Imitation Learning
Selvaraj, Nigitha
Mitrevski, Alex
Houben, Sebastian
Robotics
Traditional indoor robot navigation methods provide a reliable solution when adapted to constrained scenarios, but lack flexibility or require manual re-tuning when deployed in more complex settings. In contrast, learning-based approaches learn directly from sensor data and environmental interactions, enabling easier adaptability. While significant work has been presented in the context of learning navigation policies, learning-based methods are rarely compared to traditional navigation methods directly, which is a problem for their ultimate acceptance in general navigation contexts. In this work, we explore the viability of imitation learning (IL) for indoor navigation, using expert (joystick) demonstrations to train various navigation policy networks based on RGB images, LiDAR, and a combination of both, and we compare our IL approach to a traditional potential field-based navigation method. We evaluate the approach on a physical mobile robot platform equipped with a 2D LiDAR and a camera in an indoor university environment. Our multimodal model demonstrates superior navigation capabilities in most scenarios, but faces challenges in dynamic environments, likely due to limited diversity in the demonstrations. Nevertheless, the ability to learn directly from data and generalise across layouts suggests that IL can be a practical navigation approach, and potentially a useful initialisation strategy for subsequent lifelong learning.
title Are Learning-Based Approaches Ready for Real-World Indoor Navigation? A Case for Imitation Learning
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04086