Image Processing for Visual Navigation of Mobile Robot using Fluorescent Tubes

This paper presents an image processing method for an autonomous mobile robot indoor navigation system using fluorescent lights. The self-localization of the vehicle is done by detecting the position and orientation of fluorescent tubes located above it’s desired path thanks to a camera pointing to the ceiling. A map of the lights based on odometry data is built in advance by the robot guided by an operator. During the teaching of the environment, the robot performs autonomously lights detection and adds appropriate information for each landmark to the lights’ map it is building. Then a graphic user interface is used to define the trajectory the robot must follow with respect to the lights. While the robot is moving, an image processing algorithm similar to the one used during the teaching step is used in order to compare the position and orientation of the detected lights to the map values, which enables the vehicle to cancel odometry errors.