A Novel Dual Camera Method for Odometric Exteroceptive Relative Localisation

In this paper a new type of sensor data input for mobile robot localisation is proposed. Sensor images are taken from two ground-facing cameras mounted on either side of the robot. The affine transformations between image pairs, computed using the phase correlation method, are used to estimate the motion of the robot. Results on a plain coloured carpeted surface, show that the proposed method provides a truly odometric type sensor data input for mobile robot localisation. Being independent of the kinematics it is resistant to wheel slippage, or other catastrophic failures of kinematic model based methods. A method to calibrate the vision system using a 1D object is also presented.