Using vanishing points for purposive adjustment of viewing direction

An autonomous robot with a single visual sensor is considered in a man-made environment with trihedral rectangular structure, in which one horizontal dimension is considerably larger than others (e.g. a long corridor). A property of such an environment is that both quantity and quality of navigationally useful information that can be acquired by a visual sensor depend strongly on the viewing direction. As shown by experiments, they are greatest when the viewing direction is parallel to the longitudinal corridor axis and quickly recede as it rotates toward latitudinal corridor axis. A method is proposed for determining the robot orientation in world coordinates based on principles of projective geometry and a priori knowledge about the environment. Results of preliminary experimentation under realistic conditions are shown and discussed.