Environment Sensing and Photonics for Mobile Robots

Abstract

In the field of mobile robotics, there are three major topics: localization, mapping and SLAM. For these topics, obtaining shapes of the objects in the environment is crucial. Typical sensor is LiDAR to obtain the shapes, though other sensors like RGBD camera or stereo vision is also utilized. The present author describes principles of localization, mapping and SLAM and how the sensor behaves for these purposes. He also presents intrinsic characteristics of LiDAR that causes false measurement when there is a gap between objects in depth.