3D shape recognition by distributed sensing of range images and intensity images

This paper proposes methods for recognizing three dimensional (3D) shape with range images and intensity images which are measured by multiple robots. Distributed sensing is a key technology for multiple robot systems. As sensory information for the robot system, range images and intensity images are both useful and complementary, and thus fusion of the two images is thought to be effective. In this paper each robot is assumed to have a range image sensor and/or an intensity image sensor. Planar regions, 3D edges and cylindrical regions are extracted by the distributed sensing system as robust features for 3D shape recognition. Methods of the feature extraction which are based on sensor fusion technology, and a prototype of a model matching method with the features are proposed. Experiments are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed methods of feature extraction and model matching.