A review on egomotion by means of differential epipolar geometry applied to the movement of a mobile robot

The estimation of camera egomotion is an old problem in computer vision. Since the 1980s, many approaches based on both the discrete and the di#erential epipolar constraint have been proposed. The discrete case is used mainly in self-calibrated stereoscopic systems, whereas the di#erential case deals with a single moving camera. This article surveys several methods for 3D motion estimation unifying the mathematics convention which are then adapted to the common case of a mobile robot moving on a plane. Experimental results are given on synthetic data covering more than 0.5 million estimations. These surveyed algorithms have been programmed and are available on the Internet. ? 2003 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.