Pose Estimation and Map Building with a PMD-Camera for Robot Navigation

In this paper we describe a joint approach for robot navigation with collision avoidance, pose estimation and map building with a 2.5D PMD (Photonic Mixer Device)-Camera combined with a highresolution spherical camera. The cameras are mounted at the front of the robot with a certain inclination angle. The navigation and map building consists of two steps: When entering new terrain the robot first scans the surrounding. Simultaneously a 3D-panorama is generated from the PMD-images. In the second step the robot moves along the predefined path, using the PMD-camera for collision avoidance and a combined Structure-from-Motion (SfM) and model-tracking approach for self-localization. The computed poses of the robot are simultaneously used for map building with new measurements from the PMD-camera.