Vision-based pirouettes using radial obstacle profile

Mapping algorithms commonly use "radial sweeps" of the surrounding environment as input. Producing a sweep is a challenging task for a robot using only vision. With no odometers to measure turn angles, a vision-based robot must have another method to verify rotations. In this paper we propose using the radial obstacle profile (ROP), which gives the radial distance to the nearest obstacle in any direction in the robot's field of view. By matching the ROPs before and after a turn, the robot should be able to verify that the expected angle of rotation matches the actual angle. Combining successive ROPs then produces a radial sweep.