Strategies for automated placement of a robot hand-held mobile 3D range sensor

The problem of automatically generating the possible 3-D sensor locations for observing a scene is defined, and an approach to its solution is presented. The approach taken assumes that the sensor characteristics are well understood and that objects expected in the scene are known and modeled. Then, given a set of constraints, a set of actions is specified directing a robot arm to position itself in such a manner that an attached 3-D sensor located in the robot gripper yields the maximum information content with minimum effort with respect to the constraints. Techniques that yield solutions for placement of a triangulation-type 3-D laser range finder are presented