<title>Autonomous robot using infrared thermal camera to discriminate objects in outdoor scene</title>

Abstract

A complete autonomous legged robot is being designed at Carnegie Mellon University to perform planetary exploration without human supervision. This robot must traverse unknown and geographically diverse areas in order to collect samples of materials. This paper describes how thermal imaging can be used to identify materials in order to find good footfall positions and collection sites of material. First, we present the model that we developed for determining the temperature of materials in outdoor scene. By applying this model, we show that it is possible to determine a physical characteristic of the material: thermal inertia. Second, we describe experimental results that consist in recording thermal images of an outdoor scene constitued with sand and rock. Third, we present results and limitations of applying the model to experimental images. Fourth, we analyse how basic segmentation algorithms can be combined with the thermal inertia segmentation in order to improve the discrimination of different kind of materials.