Robust Geometric Algorithms for Sensor Planning

Abstract

We consider the problem of planning sensor strategies that enable a sensor to be automatically configured for robot tasks. In this paper we present robust and efficient algorithms for computing the regions from which a sensor has unobstructed or partially obstructed views of a target in a goal. We apply these algorithms to the Error Detection and Recovery problem of recognizing whether a goal or failure region has been achieved. Based on these methods and strategies for visually-cued camera control, we have built a robot surveillance system in which one mobile robot navigates to a viewing position from which it has an unobstructed view of a goal region, and then uses visual recognition to detect when a specific target has entered the room. 1 Introduction This paper introduces a computational framework in which to study the problem of sensor configuration, and develops combinatorially precise algorithms for computing partial and complete visibility maps. A primary motivation for this w...