Authors:
Izaak Van Crombrugge
;
Luc Mertens
and
Rudi Penne
Affiliation:
University of Antwerp, Belgium
Keyword(s):
Planar Motion, Time-of-Flight Camera, RGB-D Camera, Free Floor Detection, Obstacle Detection, Ground Plane Segmentation, Collision Avoidance.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications
;
Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics
;
Image and Video Analysis
;
Motion, Tracking and Stereo Vision
;
Pattern Recognition
;
Robotics
;
Segmentation and Grouping
;
Software Engineering
;
Tracking and Visual Navigation
Abstract:
A robust and fast free floor detection algorithm is indispensable in autonomous or assisted navigation as
it labels the drivable surface and marks obstacles. In this paper we propose a simple and fast method to
segment the free floor surface in range camera data by calculating the Euclidean distance between every
measured point of the point cloud and the ground plane. This method is accurate for planar motion, i.e. as
long as the camera stays at a fixed height and angle above the ground plane. This is most often the case in
driving mobile platforms in an indoor environment. Given this condition, the ground plane stays invariant
in camera coordinates. Obstacles as low as 40mm are reliably detected. The detection works correct even
when ’multipath’ errors are present, a typical phenomenon of distance overestimation in corners when using
time-of-flight range cameras. To demonstrate the application of our segmentation method, we implemented it
to create a simple but accurate navigation m
ap.
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