Robust parameter estimation of road condition by Kinect sensor

This paper deals with the problem of detecting convex and/or concave parts on the road surface for mobile vehicles by using a Kinect sensor. Ground condition detector is essential for mobile vehicles such as autonomous mobile robots. Also for manned vehicles such as mobility scooters, it should be useful in the dark. By using range sensors such as Kinect, range data on grid points are available. But, due to unstable sensor attachment angles, the pitch and roll angles are not fixed. In this paper, the detailed algorithm for estimating the pitch and roll angles is presented based on robust estimation scheme.