A collision-avoidance robot mounting LDM stereo vision

The authors have developed an almost real-time stereo vision system that enables the collision avoidance of mobile robots with moving obstacles. The visual system was capable of real-time processing by the LDM (laminated difference method), a technology for internal processing with the same hardware construction as that of conventional stereo vision systems. LDM is based on the comparison of brightness between picture elements to avoid occlusion problems and to achieve high-speed processing. Using a heuristic method to find solutions that satisfy the geometrical conditions in 3-D space pictures, it reduces the vagueness resulting from correspondence processing between picture elements. The experiment showed an example of a robot mounted with the visual system detecting a person as a moving obstacle, and evading it