Attention-driven monocular scene reconstruction for obstacle detection, robot navigation and map building

Abstract

In this paper, we present a feature-based approach for monocular scene reconstruction based on Extended Kalman Filters (EKF). Our method processes a sequence of images taken by a single camera mounted frontally on a mobile robot. Using a combination of various techniques, we are able to produce a precise reconstruction that is free from outliers and can therefore be used for reliable obstacle detection and 3D map building. Furthermore, we present an attention-driven method that focuses the feature selection to image areas where the obstacle situation is unclear and where a more detailed scene reconstruction is necessary. In extensive real-world field tests we show that the presented approach is able to detect obstacles that are not seen by other sensors, such as laser range finders. Furthermore, we show that visual obstacle detection combined with a laser range finder can increase the detection rate of obstacles considerably, allowing the autonomous use of mobile robots in complex public and home environments.