Optimal camera placement considering mobile robot trajectory

In the near future robots will be used in home environments to provide assistance for the elderly and challenged people. The arrangement of sensors influences greatly the quality of information provided to the robot. We, therefore, examine the problem of the optimal arrangement of vision sensors for the case of a robot following a pre-defined path. A methodology to evaluate the arrangement of sensors is proposed, focusing on the case of a home environment with ceiling cameras. Simulation results indicate that we can obtain sub-optimal and practical arrangement with the minimum number of sensors which satisfies the necessary condition.