Construction of Metric-Topological Visual Maps in Mobile Robotics

Map building is undoubtedly one of the pillars for mobile robot autonomous operation. In practice, since the world is not completely known and/or is dynamic, the mapping process is inevitable coupled to robot localization, and as a result, both problems must be addressed jointly (the SLAM problem). In this project we aim at the construction of maps of large space from visual observations taken by a mobile robot equipped with a stereo rig and also with an omnidirectional camera.

We propose an environmental representation that combines both metric and topological spatial information in a hybrid structure that we call Metric-Topological Visual Map (MTV-Map). A MTV-Map is intended to be a graph-based spatial model, in which a node is a metric sub-map consisting of a discontinuous piecewise-planar approximation of the surfaces of a certain local area. We will work on several tasks that arise within this problem, among others: 1) the design of a probabilistic technique for partitioning the visual map into areas, in a way that: keeps map consistency, is suitable for effective loop-closure detection and overcomes scalability problems; 2) creation of submaps from the triangulation of the 3D landmarks provided by the vision system, 3) the achievement of a reasonable efficient implementation of the map building process; and 4) combination of visual and laser data within the surface triangular approximation process.

REFERENCE: DPI2008-03527
TITLE: CONSTRUCTION OF METRIC-TOPOLOGICAL VISUAL MAPS IN MOBILE ROBOTICS
PRINCIPAL RESEARCHER:JAVIER GONZÁLEZ -JIMÉNEZ
INSTITUTION: UNIVERSITY OF MÁLAGA
FUNDER: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SPANISH COMMISSION
DEPARTMENT: SYSTEM ENGINEERING AND AUTOMATION

Publications

Publications in the scope of this project:

Journals (6)

2010

J.L. Blanco, J. Gonzalez-Jimenez, J.A. Fernández-Madrigal

Optimal Filtering for Non-Parametric Observation Models: Applications to Localization and SLAM

The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), vol. 29, no. 14, 2010. Q1 · T1

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J. Gonzalez-Jimenez, V. Arevalo-Espejo

Mesh Topological Optimization for Improving Piecewise-Linear Image Registration

Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 166-182, 2010. Q1 · T1

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C. Galindo, J. Gonzalez-Jimenez, J.A. Fernández-Madrigal

Interactive in-vehicle guidance through a Multihierarchical representation of Urban map

International Journal of Intelligent Systems, vol. 25, no. 7, pp. 597–707, 2010. Q3 · T2

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2009

J.L. Blanco, F.A. Moreno, J. Gonzalez-Jimenez

A Collection of Outdoor Robotic Datasets with centimeter-accuracy Ground Truth

Autonomous Robots, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 327–351, 2009, ISSN: 0929-5593. Q2 · T2

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F.A. Moreno, J.L. Blanco, J. Gonzalez-Jimenez

Stereo vision-specific models for Particle Filter-based SLAM

Robotics and Autonomous Systems, vol. 57, no. 9, pp. 955–970, 2009, ISSN: 0921-8890. Q2 · T2

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J.L. Blanco, J. Gonzalez-Jimenez, J.A. Fernández-Madrigal

Subjective Local Maps for Hybrid Metric-Topological SLAM

Robotics and Autonomous Systems, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 64–74, 2009, ISSN: 0921-8890. Q2 · T2

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Conferences (3)

2010

J. Gonzalez-Jimenez, V. Arevalo-Espejo, C. Galindo

A Method for Robust Extraction of Control Points on High-Resolution Satellite Images

100 Years ISPRS - Advancing Remote Sensing Science, Technical Commission VII Symposium, International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), Viena (Austria), 2010.

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