Location research of mobile robot with an omni-directional camera

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a method for the visual-based location of a mobile robot with an omni-directional camera in indoor environment. Omni-directional camera is composed of conventional camera and convex mirror. It has large field of view, which further reduces the number of images necessary to represent a location. The stmctnre, p~operty anti geometry of the omni-directional camera are presented. The principle of trigonometric location is also presented. We use trigonometric location and data derived from omni-directional image processing to realize robot location. Preliminary location experiments with a mobile robot equipped with an omni-directional camera in indoor environment are performed. The result of experiments shows that the proposed method has good performance.