Low cost active range sensing using halogen sheet-of-light for occupancy grid map building

We propose a low cost, accurate and safe active range sensor with a halogen sheet-of-light and a USB camera. We also propose an algorithm suitable for building a local map using the probabilistic sensor model. In this paper, the inexpensive structured light source that uses tungsten-halogen lamp is used, and an efficient method of detecting the sheet-of-light by the camera is proposed. A local map is built using the spatial occupancy technique which is inputs values in an occupancy grid that reflect the probability of occupancy for each cell. In addition, a suitable probabilistic sensor model is employed to build the local map. The experimental results show the validity of the proposed range sensor and the algorithm to build a map using the probabilistic sensor model.