Computer Vision For The Guidance Of Roving Robots

A design of computer software for machine vision of roving robots is presented. We have identified the basic requirements for the guidance and navigation of roving robots as directional guidance, obstacle avoidance, orientation determination, range finding, and object identification. To meet these requirements, we developed techniqes for safety path planning for roving robots, proposed methods for shadow identification and object discrimination, and introduced the concept of scene layout footprint and 3-D maps for landmarks. Analytical study is supported by experimental results.