The Eye-out-Device Multi-Camera Expansion for Mobile Robot Control

In visual based control (VBC), a single eye-out-device camera provides a limited viewing area. The multi-camera configuration can be used to overcome this problem. However, simultaneous multi-image processing is a challenging task. In this study; a mobile robot control is performed with Gaussian and adaptive potential field based methods under the eye-out device multi-camera configuration. Images taken from the cameras are stitched according to common features. The color based object detection is operated to detect the robot, target and obstacles in this image. To acquire a suitable path between robot and target, adaptive potential field algorithm is executed. The Gaussian based mobile robot controller is used to drive on the robot according to the path plan. In this way, configuration space can be expanded via cameras. At the same time, systematic and unsystematic errors are avoided through VBC. Simulation and real-world experiments show that the system demonstrates a good performance and efficiency.