Robot localisation enhanced by a distributed vision system in dynamic environments

Purpose – Image-based localisation has been widely investigated in mobile robotics. However, traditional image-based localisation approaches do not work when the environment appearance changes. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new system for image-based localisation, which enables the approach to work also in highly dynamic environments. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed technique is based on the use of a distributed vision system (DVS) composed of a set of cameras installed in the environment and of a camera mounted on a mobile robot. The localisation of the robot is achieved by comparing the current image grabbed by the robot with the images grabbed, at the same time, by the DVS. Finding the DVS's image, most similar to the robot's image, gives a topological localisation of the robot. Findings – Experiments reported in the paper proved the system to be effective, even exploiting a pre-existent DVS not designed for this application. Originality/value – Whilst, aware that DVSs, as the one used in this work, are not diffuse nowadays, this work is significant because a novel idea is proposed for dealing with dynamic environments in the image-based localisation approach and the idea is validated with experiments. Camera Sensor networks currently are an emerging technology and they may be introduced in several daily environments in the future.