Simultaneous Robot Localization and Mapping Based on a Visual Attention System

Visual attention regions are useful for many applications in the field of computer vision and robotics. Here, we introduce an application to simultaneous robot localization and mapping. A biologically motivated attention system finds regions of interest which serve as visual landmarks for the robot. The regions are tracked and matched over consecutive frames to build stable landmarks and to estimate the 3D position of the landmarks in the environment. Matching of current landmarks to database entries enables loop closing and global localization. Additionally, the system is equipped with an active camera control, which supports the system with a tracking, a re-detection, and an exploration behaviour. We present experiments which show the applicability of the system in a real-world scenario. A comparison between the system operating in active and in passive mode shows the advantage of active camera control: we achieve a better distribution of landmarks as well as a faster and more reliable loop closing.