A STEREO-BASED TECHNIQUE FOR THE REGISTRATION OF COLOR AND LADAR IMAGES

Abstract

In many remote robotic tasks involving tele-operation, operator performance is enhanced by integrating information acquired from various sensors, such as color, infrared, and laser range cameras. A major difficulty in designing such a multi-sensor system is the development of methods for combining the various data sources into one world model for examination by the operator. By registering different sensing modalities with LADAR range images, visualization techniques can be employed for sensor integration. Using texture mapping, registered images can be displayed through projection onto the range model to provide for 3D visualization of the data acquired from each sensor. Presented in this thesis is a novel stereo-based method for registering color and LADAR images. In this approach, corresponding features in perspective-projected LADAR intensity images and images acquired using a color camera are employed to calculate depth using triangulation, given a rough initial guess of the relative sensor positions. The sum-squared-error of the stereo and LADAR range values is then calculated, and a downhill simplex algorithm is iteratively applied to refine the