Position estimation device, control device, industrial vehicle, logistics support system, position estimation method, and program

A position estimation device for estimating a position of an industrial vehicle equipped with a laser scanner capable of acquiring point cloud data by scanning a laser beam and a camera capable of acquiring an image in a predetermined direction, the position estimation device comprising:

• an acquisition unit configured to acquire the point cloud data and the image;
• an estimation unit configured to estimate the position of the industrial vehicle based on at least one of the point cloud data or the image;
• and
• an extraction unit configured to extract, from the point cloud data, valid point cloud data that is usable for estimating the position of the industrial vehicle,
• wherein the estimation unit is configured to:
• estimate the position of the industrial vehicle using a result of mixing, at a ratio, a position estimation result based on the valid point cloud data and a position estimation result based on the image;
• and
• perform mixing such that:
• (i) a weight of the position estimation result based on the valid point cloud data relatively increases when a previous self-position of the industrial vehicle is not included in a camera-usable region;
• and (ii) a weight of the position estimation result based on the image relatively increases when the previous self-position of the industrial vehicle is included in the camera-usable region.

A position estimation method for estimating a position of an industrial vehicle equipped with a laser scanner capable of acquiring point cloud data by scanning a laser beam and a camera capable of acquiring an image in a predetermined direction, the position estimation method comprising:

• acquiring the point cloud data and the image;
• estimating the position of the industrial vehicle based on at least one of the point cloud data or the image;
• and
• extracting, from the point cloud data, valid point cloud data that is usable for estimating the position of the industrial vehicle,
• wherein the position of the industrial vehicle is estimated using the valid point cloud data in a case where a number of pieces of the valid point cloud data is equal to or greater than a predetermined number, and the position of the industrial vehicle is estimated using the image in a case where the number of pieces of the valid point cloud data is less than the predetermined number and characteristic points extracted from the image are evenly distributed.

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program that causes a computer, in a position estimation device for estimating a position of an industrial vehicle equipped with a laser scanner capable of acquiring point cloud data by scanning a laser beam and a camera capable of acquiring an image in a predetermined direction, to execute:

• acquiring the point cloud data and the image;
• estimating the position of the industrial vehicle based on at least one of the point cloud data or the image;
• and
• extracting, from the point cloud data, valid point cloud data that is usable for estimating the position of the industrial vehicle,
• wherein, the position of the industrial vehicle is estimated using the valid point cloud data in a case where a number of pieces of the valid point cloud data is equal to or greater than a predetermined number, and the position of the industrial vehicle is estimated using the image in a case where the number of pieces of the valid point cloud data is less than the predetermined number and characteristic points extracted from the image are evenly distributed.