3D Perception and Environment Map Generation for Humanoid Robot Navigation

TLDR

A humanoid robot that can go up and down stairs, crawl underneath obstacles, or simply walk around requires reliable perceptual capabilities for obtaining accurate and useful information about its surroundings. This work presents a system for generating three‑dimensional environment maps from stereo‑vision data. The system segments range data into planar segments using an extended scan‑line grouping algorithm, constructs 3D maps with occupancy grids and floor‑height maps, and applies the perception method to navigate the humanoid robot QRIO through narrow spaces, stairs, and under tables. Offline experiments demonstrate that the extended segmentation yields more precise, richer, and higher‑accuracy results than a patch‑let method while reducing computation, and the resulting maps classify six area types with height information, enabling QRIO to navigate narrow spaces, stairs, and under tables.

Abstract

A humanoid robot that can go up and down stairs, crawl underneath obstacles or simply walk around requires reliable perceptual capabilities for obtaining accurate and useful information about its surroundings. In this work we present a system for generating three-dimensional (3D) environment maps from data taken by stereo vision. At the core is a method for precise segmentation of range data into planar segments based on the algorithm of scan-line grouping extended to cope with the noise dynamics of stereo vision. In off-line experiments we demonstrate that our extensions achieve a more precise segmentation. When compared to a previously developed patch-let method, we obtain a richer segmentation with a higher accuracy while also requiring far less computations. From the obtained segmentation we then build a 3D environment map using occupancy grid and floor height maps. The resulting representation classifies areas into one of six different types while also providing object height information. We apply our perception method for the navigation of the humanoid robot QRIO and present experiments of the robot stepping through narrow space, walking up and down stairs and crawling underneath a table.