Navigation of a non-holonomic mobile robot with a memory of omnidirectional images

Abstract

Abstract — This paper extends our vision based navigation framework proposed in [2] to the entire class of central cameras (conventional and catadioptric cameras). During an off-line learning step, the robot performs paths which are sampled and stored as a set of ordered key images acquired by an embedded camera. The robot is then controlled by a vision-based control law along a visual route which joins the current image to the target image in the visual memory. We propose here to use an omnidirectional camera which significantly improves the localisation and navigation steps thanks to its large field of view. Simulations as well as real experimental results with an indoor robot illustrate the validity of the presented framework. I.