Robot Navigation Using Panoramic Landmark Tracking

A vision based navigation system is presented for determining a mobile robot’s position and orientation using panoramic imagery. Omni-directional sensors are useful in obtaining a field of view, permitting objects in the vicinity of a robot to be imaged simultaneously. Recognizing landmarks in a panoramic image from an a priori model of distinct features in an environment allows a robot’s location information to be updated. A system is shown for tracking vertex and line features for omni-directional cameras constructed with catadioptric (containing both mirrors and lenses) optics. With the aid of the Panoramic Hough Transform, line features can be tracked without restricting the mirror geometry to that which satisfies the single viewpoint criteria. Two paradigms for landmark tracking are explored, with experiments shown with synthetic and real images reported. A working implementation on a mobile robot is shown.