Recognition of Moving Objects in Mobile Robot with an Omnidirectional Camera

전방위카메라를 이용한 이동로봇에서의 이동물체 인식

This paper describes the recognition method of moving objects in mobile robot with an omnidirectional camera. The moving object is detected using the specific pattern of an optical flow in omnidirectional image. This paper consists of two parts. In the first part, the pattern of an optical flow is investigated in omnidirectional image. The optical flow in omnidirectional image is influenced on the geometry characteristic of an omnidirectional camera. The pattern of an optical flow is theoretically and experimentally investigated. In the second part, the detection of moving objects is presented from the estimated optical flow. The moving object is extracted through the relative evaluation of optical flows which is derived from the pattern of optical flow. In particular, Focus-Of-Expansion (FOE) and Focus-Of-Contraction (FOC) vectors are defined from the estimated optical flow. They are used as reference vectors for the relative evaluation of optical flows. The proposed algorithm is performed in four motions of a mobile robot such as straight forward, left turn, right turn and rotation. Experimental results using real movie show the effectiveness of the proposed method.