Stereo-based visual navigation of mobile robots in unknown environments

H. Soltani, H. D. Taghirad, A.R. Norouzzadeh Ravari
2012 20th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2012)  
In this paper a stereo vision-based algorithm for mobile robots navigation and exploration in unknown outdoor environments is proposed. The algorithm is solely based on stereo images and implemented on a nonholonomic mobile robot. The first step for exploration in unknown environments is construction of the map of circumference in real-time. By getting disparity image from rectified stereo images and translating its data to 3D-space, point cloud model of environments is constructed. Then by
more » ... ecting points to XZ plane and put local maps together based on visual odometry, global map of environment is constructed in real-time. A * algorithm is used for investigating optimal path and nonlinear back-stepping controller guides the robot to follow the identified path. Finally, the mobile robot explores for a desired object in an unknown environment through these steps. Experimental results verifY the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in real-time implementations.
doi:10.1109/iraniancee.2012.6292489 fatcat:fz5b3mq34jb3jea7qfgl6ovlpy