20 Years of Integrated Exploration

The autonomous construction of environment maps with the help of mobile robots is an important problem in modern robotics; because practically all tasks performed by robots require a representation of the working environment. Many solutions have been proposed to solve this problem known as SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). The inclusion of a motion planner to the classical SLAM problem gives way to a new approach known as “Integrated Exploration”, in which a robot gradually builds a map while simultaneously localizing itself and making local decisions on where to go to maximize the acquisition of map information. In this paper we will analyze the proposals that have been developed in the last 20 years in this area, having as a primary interest to show the advances that have been made in the area of motion planning and the challenges presented by its integration and coordination with the SLAM problem.