Trajectory sonar perception

This paper describes a new data association technique for the interpretation of wide-beam sonar measurements. The goal is to group sets of returns that originate from the same surface of an object. We consider the case of a moving observer that obtains range and bearing measurements of curved and/or faceted objects with binaural sonar operating in the specular wavelength regime. Rather than projecting sensor data into a Cartesian space before processing, we operate on a "raw" representation in terms of range, bearing, amplitude, and time. A binary geometric constraint is applied to pairs of consecutive measurements to rule out impossible assignments. A measurement flow model is proposed for validating triples of measurement. The performance of these techniques is illustrated via a set of experiments using a wide-beam 500 kHz binaural sonar system, demonstrating effective perceptual grouping and mapping with sonar echoes originating from a set of objects, despite the presence of navigation error.