A Stain Detection Method with Maximum Value Collection for the Surface of Optical Sensor

Abstract

In recent years, autonomous mobile robots, such as self-driving robots, have attracted much attention, and their practical application is expected. A range sensor, which collects information about the external world around a mobile object, is one of the most important devices for safe and accurate control of an autonomous mobile robot. It is not uncommon for autonomous mobile robots to become dirty during operation in outdoors. In particular, since the stains of the sensor affects its control, an automatic detection system is necessary. In this study, we proposed a 3D point cloud processing method (Maximum Value Collection) that detects the stained area on the optical sensor using the maximum value of the lightreceiving intensity values, and conducted a demonstration experiment applying the method to a 3D laser scanning system in optical. Our experimental results show that the proposed method is useful for estimating the stains on the optical sensor surface and its location.