Half-diminished reality image using three RGB-D sensors for remote control robots

This paper presents a method to compose half-diminished reality images for remote control robots using three RGB-D sensors. Robots are designed to perform the work of humans during a disaster response to reduce secondary disasters. In these case, a operator controls the robot with the aid of images from a mounted camera. However, operating efficiency decreases significantly when the robot arm occludes target work objects in those images. Recently, the Half-Diminished Reality technique has been proposed in the field of computer vision. This technique is used for seeing through foreground objects and viewing occluded backgrounds. Accordingly, composing half-diminished reality images can enable the operator to see the target work objects occluded by the robot arm in only one image, which results in increased the operating efficiency.