Centering peripheral features in an indoor environment using a binocular log-polar 4 DOF camera head

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes a hardware/software system that successfully detects certain stationary objects in an indoor scene. The system uses a four degree of freedom (4 DOF) pan-tilt-verge stereo camera head (built in-house) coupled with an inexpensive hardware image processor. A log-polar (LP) image mapping facilitates the detection of floor-wall-ceiling boundaries. The mapping also substantially reduces the data bandwidth of the input imagery by transforming a video resolution image into 64 × 64 pixel multiresolution image. A model matching algorithm detects the wanted object in the LP domain. If the object is in the low-resolution periphery of the LP image, the camera must be moved to center the high-resolution fovea on the object where stereo-from-vergeance can be used to calculate the distance to the object.