Mobile robot localization through identifying spatial relations from detected corners

Abstract

In this paper, the Harris corner detection algorithm is applied to images captured by a time-of-flight (ToF) camera. In this case, the ToF camera mounted on a mobile robot is exploited as a gray-scale camera for localization purposes. Indeed, the gray-scale image represents distances for the purpose of finding good features to be tracked. These features, which actually are points in the space, form the basis of the spatial relations used in the localization algorithm. The approach to the localization problem is based on the computation of the spatial relations existing among the corners detected. The current spatial relations are matched with the relations gotten during previous navigation. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.