Catadioptric omni-direction vision system based on laser illumination

Vision sensing, especially omni-directional vision can provide rich environmental information for mobile robots. However, there are several challenges in modeling and image processing of omni-directional vision, such as serious distortion and complicate image contents. This paper investigates laser structured lights based omni-directional vision, and develops the general relation between the image plane and laser plane with different convex mirrors. Therefore, the scene depth information can be obtained for map building. Simulation results show the measurement sensitivity of the four vision system. Environment measurement experiments were conducted on a mobile robot platform with the presented vision system, and the experimental results verify the vision system.