Reactive Visual Navigation Based on Omnidirectional Sensing-Path Following and Collision Avoidance

Abstract

Described here is a visual navigation method for navigating a mobile robot along a man-made route such as a corridor or a street. We propose an image sensor, named HyperOmniVision, with a, hyperboloidal mirror for vision based navigation of the mobile robot. This sensing system can acquire an omnidirectional view around the robot in real time. In the case of the man-made route, the road boundary between the ground plane and wall appears as a close-looped curve in the image. By making use of this optical characteristic, the robot can avoid obstacles and move along the corridor by tracking the close-looped curve with an active contour model. Experiments that have been done in a real environment are described.