In this paper, we present a feature based approach for monocular scene reconstruction based on extended Kalman filters (EKF). Our method processes a sequence of images taken by a single camera mounted in front of a mobile robot. Using different techniques we are able to produce a precise reconstruction that is free from outliers and therefore can be used for reliable obstacle detection and avoi...

In this paper we present the first part, part 1 of two, of a complete exploration and navigation methodology that enables a robot to safely navigate in an unknown environment. Reactive sensor-based navigation tasks and control laws are derived from the interaction between the robot and its workspace. The perception is performed by a two-dimensional laser range-finder mounted on the robot. React...

For a robot situated in a dynamic real world environment the knowledge of its position and orientation is very advantageous and sometimes essential for carrying out a given task. Particularly, one would appreciate a robust, accurate and efficient selflocalization method which allows a global localization of the robot. In certain polygonal environments a laser based localization method is capabl...

Mobile robots typically need a map of the environment to perform their tasks. In indoor environments, a 2D geometric map is commonly represented by a set of lines and points. In this work we consider a mobile robot with a laser range finder and the goal is to find the best set of lines from the sequence of points given by a laser scan. We propose a probabilistic method to deal with noisy laser ...

A r e c o g n i t i o n procedure w i t h a range f i n d e r presented i n t h i s paper i s developed f o r the eye of the i n t e l l i g e n t robo t s t u d i e d i n the E l e c t r o t e c h n i c a l L a b o r a t o r y . The range f i n d e r employs a v e r t i c a l s l i t p r o j e c t e r which p r o j e c t s a . l i g h t beam on the o b j e c t s . Whi le the beam is moved in a...

This paper describes a new range finder system which projects multi light planes. The purpose of the system is t o get 3-D data of objects a t high speed and with high accuracy. To realize the purpose two new techniques are introduced. One of the techniques is its optical system: each light source is composed of a laser diode and a cylindrical lens, and projects a light plane on the object. Fif...

In many areas of industry, it is desirable to create geometric models of existing objects for which no such model is available. This paper reviews the process of reverse engineering of shapes. After identifying the purpose of reverse engineering and the main application areas, the most important algorithmic steps are outlined and various reconstruction strategies are presented. Pros and cons of...

A novel high-quality distance sensor for robotics applications is proposed. The sensor relies on triangulation with the offset of a laser line as it is reflected off an object into a cheap webcam. An ML approach to finding the error model showed that the sensor was very accurate when the laser line was found. It is suggested that better line-finding methods than simple color filtering would mak...

The impressive advances in robotic spatial reasoning over the past decade have relied primarily on rich sensory data provided by laser range finders. Relative to cameras, however, lasers are heavy, bulky, power-hungry, and expensive. This work proposes and evaluates an image-segmentation pipeline that produces range scans from ordinary webcameras. Starting with a nearestneighbor classification ...