Efficient Navigation Algorithm Using 1D Panoramic Images

We propose a practical and efficient navigation method of the indoor mobile robot using 1D panoramic images. Mobile robot navigation, one of the most importation components in the robotic application, was carried out using the omni-directional camera that can capture 360deg images around a robot. Therefore, this camera has many advantages in the indoor navigation. In this paper, position of the robot can be estimated by 1D panoramic image correlations. This 1D image is the circular horizontal line in the omni-directional image. The proposed method can estimate the position of the robot without any previous position information in the short time i.e., kidnap problem can be coped with. The path of a robot is generated based on the node map that includes 1D panoramic images and the node information at the captured points. For the feasibility test of the proposed algorithms, we applied them to the mobile robot, iMARO-III. In this test, iMARO-III has succeeded in real world operation without any interaction with operator.