Systems and methods for accelerated obstacle detection for a robotic device

A device, comprising:

• one or more processors configured to:
• receive, from a robotic device, time-of-flight sensor data that includes a point cloud of depth images of an environment with a floor and one or more obstacles;
• shift the depth images by a number of pixels to generate shifted depth images;
• subtract the shifted depth images from the depth images to generate final images;
• calculate Euclidean distances associated with the final images;
• generate masks for the final images associated with Euclidean distances that are less than a search radius;
• calculate a covariance matrix based on the masks;
• calculate eigenvectors for the covariance matrix;
• and
• generate an occupancy grid for the environment based on the eigenvectors for the covariance matrix,
• wherein the occupancy grid enables navigation decisions for the robotic device in the environment.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a set of instructions, the set of instructions comprising:

• one or more instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a device, cause the device to:
• receive, from a robotic device, time-of-flight sensor data that includes a point cloud derived from depth images of an environment with a floor and one or more obstacles;
• shift the depth images by a number of pixels to generate shifted depth images;
• subtract the shifted depth images from the depth images to generate final images;
• calculate Euclidean distances associated with the final images;
• generate masks for the final images associated with Euclidean distances that are less than a search radius;
• calculate a covariance matrix based on the masks;
• calculate eigenvectors for the covariance matrix;
• generate an occupancy grid for the environment based on the eigenvectors for the covariance matrix;
• and
• perform one or more actions based on the occupancy grid.