Aesthetic marker design for home robot localization

Abstract

A new and aesthetic marker technique for indoor robot localization is presented in this paper. The marker, as a visual landmark, is designed to fit human inhabited indoor environments, where aesthetic considerations are as much important as efficiency of the visual localization. Design development was performed using color filtration and shape detection of the marker image. HSV color space was used for color separation, then hue component values of the highest geometric distance were selected for contrast decisions. This method allows the extraction of contrasting color information, where contrast values were lowered until machine visual detection was efficient enough whilst marker image aesthetics were still enjoyable for the human viewer. Separated colors were examined by shape detection for geometry, size and orientation to introduce the marker elements. Results of the aesthetic marker feature tracking illustrate marker information retrieval. In conclusion, aesthetic markers, when harmonized with color preference, can be integrated unobtrusively into home environments and are efficient for robot localization.