A Novel Object Recognition Method for Mobile Robot Localizing a Single Odor/Gas Source in Complex Environments

An improved single odor/gas source searching approach using a mobile robot by combining image recognition in complex environments is presented. First, color image segmentation of prospective visual candidates is achieved using support vector machines (SVM). Second, the features of those candidates, such as color, shape and orientation (the posture of the object) are extracted. Third, the robot finds a salient object according to the characteristics of analysis areas. Last, the robot moves towards the object which is the most likely to be an odor/gas source. The robot moves upwind if gas concentration is detected. Otherwise, the robot moves along the new direction obtained from the further analysis. Experimental results show the efficiency and practicality of the approach for localizing a leaking ethanol bottle in complex indoor environments.