Choosing classification thresholds for mobile robot coverage

Many robotic coverage applications involve detection of spatially distributed targets, followed by path planning to visit them for service. In these applications, the performance of the detection algorithm can have profound effect on planning decisions and costs. Range of operation, in both space and time, for robots is typically finite over a single mission and is a common constraint that needs to be accounted for in decision making. Misclassification may result in wastage of resources and can even jeopardize the completion of a mission if the length of a path extends beyond the range of the robot.In this work, we develop techniques on the computation of planning-aware classification thresholds. We discuss two versions that compute binary classification thresholds as a function of planning budget and detection accuracy. We present an implementation of our methods in path planning applications for an autonomous mower and show results on real and simulated data. Our method allows upto 25% improvement in coverage as compared to standard thresholding methods.