3D localization and tracking in unknown environments

Abstract

This paper describes a vision-based system for 3D localization and tracking of a mobile robot in an unmodified environment. The system includes a mountable head with three on-board stereo CCD cameras that can be installed on the robot. There the main emphasis is on the ability to estimate the geometric information of the robot independently from any prior scene knowledge, landmark or extra sensory device. Distinctive scene features are identified using a novel algorithm and their 3D locations are estimated with a stereo algorithm. Using multi-stage feature tracking and motion estimation in a symbolic manner, precise motion vectors are obtained. The 3D positions of the scene features are updated by a Kalman filtering process. Experimental results show that robust tracking and localization can be achieved using our vision system.