Visual localization of a mobile robot in indoor environments using planar landmarks

This article describes the localization function integrated in a landmark-based navigation system. It relies on the use of planar landmarks (typically, posters) to localize the robot. It is based on two periodic processes running at different frequencies. One of them performs the poster tracking (based on the partial Hausdorff distance) and the active control of the camera. The other one runs on a lower frequency and localizes the robot thanks to the tracked landmarks, the positions of which have been learnt during an ofline exploration step. The system has been embedded on our indoor Hilare mobile robot and works in real time. Experiments, illustrated in this paper, demonstrate the validity of the approach.