Principle and Robotic Applications of Conical Scanning Method

We have proposed a surrounding environmental recognition method using conical scanning distance measurement for mobile robots. The conical scanning method has a high robustness against ambient light noise and its calculation cost is low. This report describes the principle of this method and the two implementations. The first application is the quadrupedal wheeled robot. The robot can recognize a stair in sight, approach to it and climb. A second application is the indoor-outdoor wheeled mobile robot. The robot can recognize its position and obstacles on floor from information of a laser range finder and a 3D ToF camera. The validity of this method was confirmed by these robotic applications