Abstract
Recently a RGB-D sensor "Kinect v2" is on the market, which is reputed to be available even in the outdoor environment. In this article, it was installed on a mobile robot and its performance in the outdoor was characterized. It was proven that the obtained point density is decreased, affected by infrared ray in a shine condition compared to dark condition. The Kinect v2 performance was compared with a Laser Range Finder (LRF). It was proven that dense point data of a road surface is successfully acquired by Kinect v2, whereas rather sparse data is acquired by LRF. Considering that a LRF itself scans laser beam on 2D plane, it was set on a swinging stage to obtain 3D data, making the obtained point density per space lower compared to Kinect v2. The robot usually follows a planned path to a command position based on odometry, which is periodically updated by a global positioning system (GPS). In case that GPS is not available owing to the radio wave occlusion by a tall building etc., Kinect v2 was used instead of GPS. It was proven that the robot can follow the planned path by detecting the road surface in such case without GPS.