Camera-based monitoring system for mobile robot guidance

The more the robot knows about its environment, the more efficiently it can operate. This is the basic idea of the system presented in this paper. By employing an external camera-based sensing system, a global model of the robot´s environment is maintained and updated continuously. Thus, motion planning and collision avoidance in a dynamic environment (i.e. an environment which contains moving obstacles) can be done efficiently. For many indoor applications this concept is inherently superior compared to mobile robots which act completely autonomously. The paper presents concepts and components of an experimental system: Sensing is done with CCD cameras; the processed data is furnished to different modules regarding robot localization, obstacle detection and motion planning