Improving 2D Reactive Navigators with Kinect

Javier Gonzalez-Jimenez, J. R. Ruiz-Sarmiento, Cipriano Galindo

2013

Abstract

Most successful mobile robots rely on 2D radial laser scanners for perceiving the environment. The use of these sensors for reactive navigation has a serious limitation: the robot can only detect obstacles in the plane scanned by the sensor, with the consequent risk of collision with objects out of this plane. The recent commercialization of RGB-D cameras, like Kinect, opens new possibilities in this respect. In this paper we address the matter of adding the 3D information provided by these cameras to a reactive navigator designed to work with radial laser scanners. We experimentally analyze the suitability of Kinect to detect small objects and propose a simple but effective method to combine readings from both type of sensors as well as to overcome some of the drawbacks that Kinect presents. Experiments with a real robot and a particular reactive algorithm have been conducted, proving a significant upgrade in performance.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Gonzalez-Jimenez J., R. Ruiz-Sarmiento J. and Galindo C. (2013). Improving 2D Reactive Navigators with Kinect.In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 1: ICINCO, ISBN 978-989-8565-71-6, pages 393-400. DOI: 10.5220/0004485503930400

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icinco13,
author={Javier Gonzalez-Jimenez and J. R. Ruiz-Sarmiento and Cipriano Galindo},
title={Improving 2D Reactive Navigators with Kinect},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 1: ICINCO,},
year={2013},
pages={393-400},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004485503930400},
isbn={978-989-8565-71-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 1: ICINCO,
TI - Improving 2D Reactive Navigators with Kinect
SN - 978-989-8565-71-6
AU - Gonzalez-Jimenez J.
AU - R. Ruiz-Sarmiento J.
AU - Galindo C.
PY - 2013
SP - 393
EP - 400
DO - 10.5220/0004485503930400