The Great Outdoors (GO) dataset is a multi-modal annotated data resource aimed at advancing ground robotics research in unstructured environments. Existing off-road datasets often lack sensor diversity and exclude vital modalities like thermal and radar that are critical for operation in degraded conditions (e.g., low visibility or adverse weather). To address these gaps, we introduce a large-scale multimodal off-road dataset with six complementary sensor modalities, along with semantic annotations and GPS traces, to support tasks such as semantic segmentation, object detection, and SLAM. The diverse environmental conditions represented in the dataset present significant real-world challenges, which provide opportunities to develop more robust solutions to support the continued advancement of field robotics, autonomous exploration, and perception systems in natural environments. The dataset can be downloaded at: https://www.unmannedlab.org/the-great-outdoors-dataset/

We present a local 3D voxel mapping framework for off-road path planning and navigation. Our method provides both hard and soft positive obstacle detection, negative obstacle detection, slope estimation, and roughness estimation. By using a 3D array lookup table data structure and by leveraging the GPU it can provide online performance. We then demonstrate the system working on three vehicles, a Clearpath Robotics Warthog, Moose, and a Polaris Ranger, and compare against a set of pre-recorded waypoints. This was done at 4.5 m/s in autonomous operation and 12 m/s in manual operation with a map update rate of 10 Hz. Finally, an open-source ROS implementation is provided.https://github.com/unmannedlab/G-VOM

We present a method for path optimization for ground vehicles in off-road environments at high speeds. This path optimization considers the kinematic constraints of the vehicle. By thinking in the actuator space we can represent such constraints as limits in the space rather than derived properties of the path. In this paper we present an actuator space approach to path optimization for off-road ground vehicles. This is done by representing the path as a list of steering angles over the path length. This transforms the set of kinematic constraints into constraints on the steering angle. We then put this path into a gradient descent solver. This produces paths that are kinematically feasible and optimized in accordance with our cost function. Finally, we tested the system both in simulation and on an off-road vehicle at speeds of 5 m/s.

In this paper, we present a fast, on-line mapping and planning solution for operation in unknown, off-road, environments. We combine obstacle detection along with a terrain gradient map to make simple and adaptable cost map. This map can be created and updated at 10 Hz. An A* planner finds optimal paths over the map. Finally, we take multiple samples over the control input space and do a kinematic forward simulation to generated feasible trajectories. Then the most optimal trajectory, as determined by the cost map and proximity to A* path, is chosen and sent to the controller. Our method allows real time operation at rates of 30 Hz. We demonstrate the efficiency of our method in various off-road terrain at high speed.