Road edge and obstacle detection on the SmartGuard navigation system

This paper discusses an application of the IPM (inverse perspective mapping) geometrical transform on the inspection power robot (SmartGuard). The SmartGuard is an autonomous robotic system for inspection substation equipment instead of people. Based on the stereo vision system, we proposed a Vision base road edge and obstacle detection system. Firstly, we construct the IPM( Inverse perspective mapping) structure from the vision system structure and the road plane in the substation. Secondly, make the monocular image transform of IPM, and get the edge of the road based on the line detection. Thirdly, do the stereo images IPM, based the transformed images, detect the different of the stereo remapping images to get the probable obstacle. Continues, we give a hypothesis testing obstacle detection approach to make the obstacle information more exactly. At last, we make the 2D map both the road edge and obstacle which could provide enough information for the robot navigation in the substation.