Scene Recognition for Robot Localization in Difficult Environments

Scene understanding is still an important challenge in robotics. In this paper we analyze the utility of scene recognition to determine the localization of a robot. We assume that multi-sensor localization systems may be very useful in crowded environments where there will be many people around the robot but not many changes of the furniture. In our localization system we categorize the sensors in two groups: accurate sensor models able to determine the pose of the robot accurately but which are sensible to noise or the presence of people. Robust sensor modalities able to provide rough information about the pose of the robot in almost any condition. The performance of our localization strategy was analyzed through two experiments realized in the Centro Singular de Investigacion en Tecnoloxias da Informacion (CITIUS), at the University of Santiago de Compostela.