Relocation using laser and vision

We present a method for solving the first location problem using 2D laser and vision. Our observation is a two-dimensional laser scan together with its corresponding image. The observation is segmented into textured vertical planes; each vertical plane contains geometrical information about its location given by the laser scan, plus the gray level image obtained by the camera. The rich plane texture allows a safe plane recognition. Once two planes are recognized as correspondent, the computer vision geometry allows to compute the relative camera motion. The proposed algorithm outperforms both laser-only and vision-only algorithms. This is shown in the experimental results where a map composed of 8 observations of a 20×3 meter corridor is used to successfully locate the robot (without any other prior) in 163 out of 192 initial test robot locations.