CHARACTER-BASED MOBILE ROBOT NAVIGATION

Abstract

In this paper, the authors describe a mobile robot navigation method using character information in scenes as landmarks. Signboards on wall and doors are used as landmarks. An environment map containing the approximate position of each signboard in the environment is given to the robot. in order to detect characters in scene images, several heuristics of characters and character lines are used. The coordinate value of the vanishing point of two parallel signboard edges in the scene image is then calculated. This allows for estimating the relative orientation of the camera and signboard from a single view. The authors also describe a method for rectifying a distorted signboard image.