Construction of elevation map for user-carried outdoor mobile robot using stereo vision

The construction method of environment description using stereo camera is described in this paper. This method is for safety of user-carried semi-autonomous mobile robot in outdoor environment that contains steps and slopes. This method constructs environment map by using three-dimension occupancy grid. These grids are cuboids fine in height direction. Three-dimension flow is used for self-localization. The elevation map is constructed from the three-dimension occupancy grid, and the dangerous area is calculated from the elevation map. This make it enable to distinguish passable slopes and impassable steps. Moreover, this system is equipped for an outdoor semi-autonomous electric scooter and performed in real world.