Ground plane detection using an RGB-D sensor

Ground plane detection is essential for successful navigation of vision based mobile robots. We introduce a very simple but robust ground plane detection method based on depth information obtained using anRGB-Depth sensor. We present two different variations of the method: the simplest one is robust in setups where the sensor pitch angle is fixed and has no roll, whereas the second one can handle changes in pitch and roll angles. Our comparisons show that our approach performs better than the vertical disparity approach. It produces accurate ground plane-obstacle segmentation for difficult scenes, which include many obstacles, different floor surfaces, stairs, and narrow corridors.Publisher's VersionAuthor Post Prin

PERCEPTION OF PASSABLE PATHS USING MULTIPLE BLURRED IMAGES AND IMPLEMENTATION ON A SMALL ROBOT

Autonomous robots need to search for passable paths in order to adaptively behave in unknown environments. In previous research, a method to search for passable paths using two blurred images was proposed, focusing on the special retinal structure of the jumping spider. However, conventional methods have problems in that they require known information and misidentify a gentle slope as an obstacle. In this study, we propose a new method that improves these problems by using five blurred images. We implemented the proposed method on a small robot and conducted running experiments. We confirmed that the proposed method can evaluate the passability of a slope only based on information such as the number of points where the sign of the difference in blurring amount changes (changing points)

Detection of dominant planar surfaces in disparity images based on random sampling

U ovom članku ispituje se praktična primjenjivost RANSAC-pristupa za detekciju ravnih površina na slikama dispariteta dobivenim pomoću stereo vizije. Težište istraživanja je primjena u interijerima, gdje je velik dio dominantnih površina jednolično obojen, što predstavlja poseban problem za stereo viziju. Ispitano je nekoliko jednostavnih modifikacija osnovnog RANSAC-algoritma s ciljem utvrđivanja koliko oni mogu poboljšati njegovu učinkovitost. Predložene su dvije jednostavne mjere točnosti rekonstrukcija ravnih površina. Provedeno je eksperimentalno istraživanje na slikama snimljenim sustavom stereo vizije montiranom na mobilnog robota koji se kretao hodnicima fakulteta.In this paper, the applicability of RANSAC-approach to planar surface detection in disparity images obtained by stereo vision is investigated. This study is specially focused on application in indoor environments, where many of the dominant surfaces are uniformly colored, which poses additional difficulties to stereo vision. Several simple modifications to the basic RANSAC-algorithm are examined and improvements achieved by these modifications are evaluated. Two simple performance measures for evaluating the accuracy of planar surface detection are proposed. An experimental study is performed using images acquired by a stereo vision system mounted on a mobile robot moving in an indoor environment

A Stereovision Method for Obstacle Detection and Tracking in Non-Flat Urban Environments

Obstacle detection is an essential capability for the safe guidance of autonomous vehicles, especially in urban environments. This paper presents an efficient method to integrate spatial and temporal constraints for detecting and tracking obstacles in urban environments. In order to enhance the reliability of the obstacle detection task, we do not consider the urban roads as rigid planes, but as quasi-planes, whose normal vectors have orientation constraints. Under this flexible road model, we propose a fast, robust stereovision based obstacle detection method. A watershed transformation is employed for obstacle segmentation in dense traffic conditions, even with partial occlusions, in urban environments. Finally a UKF (Unscented Kalman filter) is applied to estimate the obstacles parameters under a nonlinear observation model. To avoid the difficulty of the computation in metric space, the whole detection process is performed in the disparity image. Various experimental results are presented, showing the advantages of this method