Monitoring glacier changes is essential for estimating the water mass balance of the Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we exploit ICESat laser altimetry data in combination with the SRTM DEM and the GLIMS glacier mask to estimate trends in change in glacial thickness between 2003 and 2009 on the whole Tibetan Plateau. Considering acquisition conditions of ICESat measurements and terrain surface c...

This paper presents an obstacle negotiation method for mobile robot navigation. The proposed method first transforms a local terrain map surrounding the robot’s momentary position into a grid-type traversability map by extracting the slope and roughness of a terrain patch through least-squares plane-fitting. It then evaluates the overall traversal property along each direction. The traversal in...

Trajectory generation has traditionally been formulated on the assumption that the environment is flat. On rough terrain, however, deviations of the angular velocity vector from the vertical lead to errors which accumulate in a manner similar to the accumulation of attitude errors in odometry. In practice, feedback control can compensate for these errors in modeling by adjusting the path in rea...

The path planning problem is an important problem in the research area of robot, games and group animation. This paper shows a 2.5-dimensional terrain grid which can reduce the amount of computation. By applying the fuzzy logic theory, the terrain trafficability of the rugged road can be evaluated based on different gradient, roughness, elevation difference; the trafficability factor can be ach...

In this paper, a theoretical-empirical model is developed for modelling the accuracy of a grid digital elevation model (DEM) linearly constructed from scattered sample data. The theoretical component integrates sample data accuracy in the model by means of the error-propagation theory. The empirical component seeks to model what is known as information loss, i.e. the sum of the error due purely...

[i] An ongoing issue regarding the crustal evolution of Venus is whether or not certain features and processes occurred in the same sequence and at the same time globally. This paper seeks to test one aspect of "directional" models for the geologic history; the inference that all ridge belts are older than regional plains. This test involves traditional geologic analysis, but also involves the ...

The emergence of high-fidelity vehicle and tire models has raised the requirements for terrain measurement capabilities. Inaccuracies that were once tolerable for measurement of general terrain roughness are no longer acceptable for these new applications. The techniques in this work seek to improve the quality of terrain measurement in addition to providing an objective way to describe the acc...

Touching for shape recognition has been shown to activate occipital areas in addition to somatosensory areas. In this study we asked if this combination of somatosensory and other sensory processing areas also exist in other kinds of touch recognition. In particular, does touch for texture roughness matching activate other sensory processing areas apart from somatosensory areas? We addressed th...