SIGNIFICANT LINE SEGMENTS FOR AN INDOOR MOBILE ROBOT

New algorithms for detecting and interpreting linear features of a rea l scene as imaged by a single camera on a mobile robot are described. The low-level processing stages are specifically designed to increase the usefulness and the quality of the extracted features for indoor sc ene understanding. In order to derive 3-D information from a 2-D image , we consider only lines with particular orientations in 3-D. The dete ction and interpretation processes provide a 3-D orientation hypothesi s for each 2-D segment. This in turn is used to estimate the robot's o rientation and relative position in the environment. Next, the orienta tion data is used by a motion stereo algorithm to fully estimate the 3 -D structure when a sequence of images becomes available. From detecti on to 3-D estimation, a strong emphasis is placed on real-world applic ations and very fast processing with conventional hardware. Results of experimentation with a mobile robot under realistic conditions are gi ven and discussed.