Appearance-Based Obstacle Detection with Monocular Color Vision

Abstract

This paper presents a new vision-based obstacle detection method for mobile robots. Each individual image pixel is classified as belonging either to an obstacle or the ground based on its color appearance. The method uses a single passive color camera, performs in real-time, and provides a binary obstacle image at high resolution. The system is easily trained by simply driving the robot through its environment. In the adaptive mode, the system keeps learning the appearance of the ground during operation. The system has been tested successfully in a variety of environments, indoors as well as outdoors. 1. Introduction Obstacle detection is an important task for many mobile robot applications. Most mobile robots rely on range data for obstacle detection. Popular sensors for range-based obstacle detection systems include ultrasonic sensors, laser rangefinders, radar, stereo vision, optical flow, and depth from focus. Because these sensors measure the distances from obstacles t...