Fast visual mapping for mobile robot navigation

Abstract

In this paper we describe a vision-based mapping system for mobile robot navigation that is fast, simple and requires very modest computational resources. The system comes in two parts: a visual range subsystem and a map building subsystem. The visual range subsystem acts as a kind of 'virtual range sensor': it takes as input a stream of images and produces as output a stream of range-and-bearing measurements, comparable to that produced by a scanning laser range finder. The map building subsystem then fuses this data stream into a coherent grid-based representation of the environment. The system has been implemented and extensively tested on Robot J. Edgar, a small mobile robot that roams the corridors of an unmodified office building.