Cuboid-based mapping using time-series range data for a daily assistive robot working on a daily environment

Abstract

This paper describes a method of environment representation based on range data. The method named ‘Time-series Composite Cuboid Map’ is useful for daily assistive robots working on everyday environments. It explicitly copes with temporal sequence of range data, and contributes to online mapping about the following items: (1) Taking over the advantages of Multi-Level Surface Map, high power of expression with a small number of elements is achieved and (2) the compliance of temporal order of the environment map was kept according to addition and subtraction operation. The effective operation for map renewal is also proposed. As verification experiments, both a Laser RangeFinder mounted on tilting platform and a range camera are used, and mapping performance was confirmed. In addition, an application to collision and occlusion detection was implemented to a life-sized robot and the effectiveness of the proposed method was proved.