Proposal of a Method to Detect Obstacle Using Projector and Camera

In recent years, the introduction of business and service robots has progressed in Japan, and the number of unmanned transfer robots is increasing. Therefore, I will focus on obstacle detection, which is an indispensable function for automated guided vehicles. Conventional methods for detecting obstacles include ultrasonic sensors, PSD sensors, and 2D-LIDAR, but they have disadvantages such as a narrow measurement range, being easily affected by disturbances, and having a long mechanical life. Therefore, as a previous research, our laboratory has been developing an obstacle detection system using a line laser and a camera in order to improve these disadvantages. In this method, a line laser is used to irradiate the floor surface in front of the robot with a horizontal line, and obstacles are detected from changes in the horizontal line. This method improves the disadvantages of the conventional method and enables the detection of obstacles with a long life that is not easily affected by disturbances over a wide area. However, there are disadvantages such as being able to detect only obstacles on the straight line of the laser and being able to detect only part of the obstacles. Therefore, I propose an obstacle detection system using a projector and a camera for the purpose of improving the disadvantages of the conventional method and the disadvantages of previous research. This method is a system in which a projector irradiates the floor surface in front of the robot with multiple vertical and horizontal lines and detects obstacles from the characteristic changes in the lines. In this study, we conducted three experiments to verify the superiority of this study when compared with the previous studies. As a result of the experiment, it was confirmed that this study improved the disadvantages of the conventional method and the previous study.