A Navigation Method Using Active Vision for a Indoor Mobile Robot

This paper describes a navigation method for an indoor mobile robot using an active vision system. The robot with an active camera and an odometer is navigated based on a map of landmarks. The camera is controlled to take a landmark around it. Mobile robot's location is calculated based on the location of the landmark on the map, the coordinate of the landmark in the image taken by the camera and the yaw angel of the camera. The corridor, which is our navigation environment, is divided into two areas, the comer area and the straight area. In the corner area, the comer point is chosen as the landmark because it exists in the center of the turn when a mobile robot turns. In the straight area, doors are chosen as the landmark because some doors exist in this area and have a simple shape. In this area, the robot chooses one among the doors as a landmark according to the least estimated distance error between itself and the doors. The navigation results using these methods are shown, too.