An Obstacle Detection and Avoidance Method for Mobile Robot Using a Stereo Camera Combined with a Laser Slit

To detect and avoid obstacles is one of the important tasks of mobile navigation. In a real environment, when a mobile robot encounters dynamic obstacles, it is required to simultaneously detect and avoid obstacles for its body safely. In previous vision system, mobile robot has used it as either a passive sensor or an active sensor. This paper proposes a new obstacle detection algorithm that uses a stereo camera as both a passive sensor and an active sensor. Our system estimates the distances from obstacles by both passive-correspondence and active-correspondence using laser slit. The system operates in three steps. First, a far-off obstacle is detected by the disparity from stereo correspondence. Next, a close obstacle is acquired from laser slit beam projected in the same stereo image. Finally, we implement obstacle avoidance algorithm, adopting the modified Dynamic Window Approach (DWA), by using the acquired the obstacle's distance.