3D Map Building of the Mobile Robot Using Structured Light

For autonomous navigation of the mobile robots, the robots' capability to recognize 3D environment is necessary. In this paper, an on-line 3D map building method for autonomous mobile robots is proposed. To get range data on the environment, we use a sensor system which is composed of a structured light and a CCD camera based on optimal triangulation. The structured laser is projected as a horizontal strip on the scene. The sensor system can rotate$\pm$30$^{\circ}$ with a goniometer. Scanning the system, we get the laser strip image for the environments and update planes composing the environment by some image processing steps. From the laser strip on the captured image, we find a center point of each column, and make line segments through blobbing these center points. Then, the planes of the environments are updated. These steps are done on-line in scanning phase. With the proposed method, we can efficiently get a 3D map about the structured environment.