APPLICATION OF LOG-HOUGH TRANSFORM TO LIDAR NAVIGATION

EFFICIENT SENSORY PERCEPTION AND PROCESSING ARE CRUCIAL TO MOBILE ROBOT NAVIGATION. AS SENSOR TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES, CONVENTIONAL PROCESSING METHODS BOTTLENECK, CRIPPLING REAL TIME OPERATION. RESEARCHERS HAVE RECENTLY DEVELOPED A LOW-COST LIDAR SYSTEM CAPABLE OF GENERATING 10,000 SAMPLES PER SECOND, CHALLENGING SENSOR DATA PROCESSING RATES. THIS PROJECT IS EFFICIENTLY AND ROBUSTLY COMPRESSING SENSORY RANGE-BEARING DATA BY APPLYING THE LOG-HOUGH TRANSFORM TO RECOGNIZE WALLS AND CHARACTERIZE THEM PARAMETRICALLY. WALLS ARE THE DOMINANT NAVIGATION REFERENCE FEATURES IN BUILT ENVIRONMENTS. THE LOG-HOUGH TRANSFORM CONVERTS A LONG CHAIN OF SENSOR HITS ON A WALL TO A SINGLE DATA POINT REPRESENTING LINE PARAMETERS. THIS SUCCINCT DATA CAN BE USED FOR LOCALIZATION AGAINST A PRIORI MAPS WITHOUT OVERLOADING COMMUNICATIONS CHANNELS TO THE NAVIGATOR. LIDAR DATA IS BEING GATHERED AND ANALYZED WITH RESPECT TO RANGE AND BEARING RESOLUTION; SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTS THE LOG-HOUGH TRANSFORM ON THIS DATA.