Localization method based on omnidirectional stereoscopic vision and dead-reckoning

This paper presents a system of absolute localization based on the cooperation of a stereoscopic omnidirectional vision system and a dead-reckoning system. To do it we use an original perception system which allows our omnidirectional vision sensor SYCLOP to move along a rail. The first part of our study will deal with the problem of building the sensorial model with the help of the two stereoscopic omnidirectional images. To solve this problem we propose an approach based on the fusion of several criteria which will be made according to Dempster-Shafer rules. As for the second part, it will be devoted to exploiting this sensorial model to localize the robot thanks to matching the sensorial primitives with the environment map. We use the dead-reckoning prediction to decrease the combinatory aspect of the matching algorithm. We analyze the performance of our global absolute localization system on several robot’s elementary moves, in an indoor environment.