Analysis of data fusion methods in certainty grids application to collision danger monitoring

The authors focus on the use of the occupancy grid representation to maintain and combine the information acquired from sensors about the environment. This information is subsequently used to monitor the robot collision danger risk and take into account that risk in starting the appropriate maneuver. The occupancy grid representation uses a multidimensional tessellation of space into cells, where each cell stores some information about its state. A general model associates a random vector that encodes multiple properties in a cell state. If the cell property is limited to occupancy, it is usually called occupancy grid. Two main approaches have been used to model the occupancy of a cell: probabilistic estimation and the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence. Probabilistic estimation and some combination rules based on the Dempster-Shafter theory of evidence are analyzed and their possibilities compared.<<ETX>>