Mobile robot navigation in unknown environment using structured light

Abstract

Our paper represents how it is possible to control a mobile robot through computer vision. In the paper the issues of emergency response (automatic obstacle avoidance) and autonomous control is mentioned as well. For perception, the robot uses a laser diode and a webcam. The dot shaped light of the laser diode is transformed to a line by an optics. On the perceived image the spatial position of objects can be obtained from the reference position of the projected line and the actual position of the laser line. To specify the possible obstacles on the planned route of the vehicle, the depth map which can be obtained by the triangular method can be used. The completed software runs on a vehicle mounted computer and communicates with the car through serial port.