Virtual reality (VR) technology has advanced significantly in recent years. New VR technology provides potential solutions to existing modern problems. An instance of a modern problem is the need to preserve indoor environments of aging historical buildings due to their cultural significance combined with the fact that physically maintaining these buildings can be both expensive and time consuming. Virtual indoor environments can be explored using a VR headset when users are at different locations. Current VR technology allows indoor spaces to be digitally recorded with high resolution and detail, therefore it can be applied to a variety of different applications. However, modern industry lacks an autonomous and versatile device to efficiently map interior spaces. Conventional indoor mapping methods require human operators which makes the process time consuming and expensive. The scope of this project is to develop an autonomous device capable of 3-dimensional (3D) mapping of indoor spaces for a reasonable cost and the capacity to be used for a diverse range of applications. 

The proposed spatial mapping system consists of three main components which are a wheeled mobile platform (WMP), a stereo camera, and a Pan/Tilt Mechanism for the stereo camera. Four omni-directional wheels with four DC motors are mounted on WMP. WMP also holds Jetson Nano, motor drive integrated circuit (IC), Arduino Uno, power supply, and a metal pole. To achieve an elevated view of surrounding environments, the Pan/Tilt Mechanism attached with the stereo camera is placed on top of the metal pole. The stereo camera includes spatial mapping and collision detection functionalities, which are used for producing a textured 3D mesh of the recorded indoor spaces and collision avoidance during autonomous operation.