Puddle Detection for Avoidance Path Planning of Wheeled Mobile Robot Using Laser Reflection Intensity
Hirotaka Tahara, Ibuki Ikegami, Kenichiro Takakura, Tatsuya Kato · The Proceedings of JSME annual Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (Robomec) · 2019
Avoiding obstacles is one of important function for outdoor mobile robots. Although detecting three-dimensional obstacles and avoiding them have been studied, planar obstacles, such as puddles, have been ignored. Avoiding puddles is important to prevent electric problems, odometry error, and feeling displeasure. However, it is difficult to detect puddles by using only visual information. Because puddles change their shape and their color due to environmental conditions. This paper proposes the method to detect puddles by using laser reflection intensity and path planning method to avoid the puddles. Laser reflection intensity of various road surfaces were investigated, and the effectiveness of the proposed method was confirmed through real-robot experiments.