Vision Guided AGV Using Distance Transform

Abstract

This paper presents an approach for outdoor robot navigation using Distance Transform Methodology (DT). DT has been used in path planning for indoor robot research and can also be used to perform obstacle avoidance simultaneously. However, when it comes to outdoor robot navigation, the operating environment becomes too large and DT becomes inefficient when performing both the tasks of path planning and obstacle avoidance. Usually both tasks have to be decoupled and DT is normally only used for path planning. The newly proposed DT methodology solves this problem by optimising the DT algorithm and reducing the processing area. Simulation and actual tests had also been carried out on an autonomous mobile robot to verify that the DT methodology can integrate both the tasks of path planning and obstacle avoidance and yield encouraging results in outdoor navigation. 1.