[Talk]2D Localization of Outdoor Mobile Robots Using 3D Laser Range Data

Title:
2D Localization of Outdoor Mobile Robots Using 3D Laser Range Data

Speaker:
Takeshi Takahashi, Masters Student, Robotics Institute

Date/Time/Location:
Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:00am, WeH 4615A @CMU

Abstract:
Robot localization in outdoor environments is a challenging problem because of unstructured terrains. 2D ladars that are not horizontally attached have benefits for detecting obstacles but are not suitable for some localization algorithms used for indoor robots, which have horizontally fixed ladars. The data obtained from tilted ladars are 3D while these from non-tilted ladars are 2D. We present a 2D localization approach for these non-horizontally
attached ladars. This algorithm combines 2D particle filter localization with a 3D perception system. We localize the vehicle without GPS by comparing a local map with a known map. These maps are created by converting 3D data into 2D data. Experimental results show that our approach is able to utilize the benefits of 3D data and 2D maps to efficiently overcome the problems of outdoor environments.

Speaker Bio:
Takeshi is currently a second year Masters student at the Robotics Institute, and is advised by Sanjiv Singh. His main research is localization for outdoor mobile robots. He received his B.Eng degree in computer science from National Defense Academy, Japan, in 2002.