Safe robot navigation using an omnidirectional camera

Abstract

The paper presents a safe robot navigation system based on omnidirectional vision. The 360 degree camera images are analyzed for obstacle detection and avoidance and of course for navigating safely in the given indoor environment. This module can process images in real time and extracts the direction and distance information of the obstacles from the camera system mounted on the robot. This two data is the output of the module. Because of the distortions of the omnidirectional vision, it is necessary to calibrate the camera and not only for that but also to get the right direction and distances information. Several image processing methods and technics were used which are investigated in the rest of this paper.