Characterising an indoor environment with a mobile robot and uncalibrated stereo

The author shows how it is possible for a mobile robot to exploit the visual information obtained by scanning a room to determine its size and shape, and to orient itself continually within it. The equipment used is a very simple camera setup whose detailed initial configuration is not known but can be deduced as the algorithm runs. The approach does not require any special environment, nor is it sensitive to changes in the physical aspect of the room being inspected such as moved furniture or roaming people. The long-term goal of the project is for the robot to use the information thus acquired in order to build maps of its environment, presumed to be a single floor of an office building, and to localize itself within this framework.<<ETX>>