Mobile robot localization and path planning using an omnidirectional camera and infrared sensors

In this paper, we propose a self-localization and path-planning method for mobile robot navigation. An omnidirectional camera and infrared sensors are used to extract the landmarks information of the environment. Due to the large field of view of the omnidirectional camera, the mobile robot can capture the rich information of the environment. The landmark features are detected and extracted from the omnidirectional video camera, so the robot is able to navigate in the environment automatically to learn the localization information and avoid obstacles by using infrared sensors. The robot system can then use the localization information to plan a shortest path to visit some particular locations prespecified by the user.