<title>Obstacle avoidance using a line laser</title>

Abstract

A line laser has been used to help navigation and obstacle detection for the indoor mobile robot PARIDE (Pavia autonomous robot for industrial environment). PARIDE is an A.M.R. based on a TRC platform that is being implemented using a subsumption architecture simulated through software on a 68030 board. The line is projected on the robot path and continually monitored using a CCD camera to detect line interruption or deviation. Laser, CCD camera, and frame grabber have been chosen in order to be commercially available and within the power requirements and physical dimensions of the mobile platform. The robot has to act in a human environment thus the laser must be safe (class 3A), visible (685 nm) and powerful to allow good quality images acquisition. Images are filtered, during acquisition, in order to simplify the low-level image processing.