Robot Posture Estimation Using Circular Image of Inner-Pipe

This paper proposes the methodology of the image processing algorithm that estimates the pose of the inner-pipe crawling robot. The inner-pipe crawling robot is usually equipped with a lighting device and a camera on its head for monitoring and inspection purpose of defects on the pipe wall and/or the maintenance operation. The proposed methodology is using these devices without introducing the extra sensors and is based on the fact that the position and the intensity of the reflected light from the inner wall of the pipe vary with the robot posture and the camera. The proposed algorithm is divided into two parts, estimating the translation and rotation angle of the camera, followed by the actual pose estimation of the robot . Based on the fact that the vanishing point of the reflected light moves into the opposite direction from the camera rotation, the camera rotation angle can be estimated. And, based on the fact that the most bright parts of the reflected light moves into the same direction with the camera translation, the camera position most bright parts of the reflected light moves into the same direction with the camera translation, the camera position can be obtained. To investigate the performance of the algorithm, the algorithm is applied to a sewage maintenance robot.

원형관로 영상을 이용한 관로주행 로봇의 자세 추정