US 2012/0230550 A1 · Method and Apparatus for Generating a Map from Landmarks

Abstract

A method and apparatus for generating a map from landmarks. The method and apparatus may involve the use of a processor circuit. An embodiment may consist of a platform with a processor circuit, and various different sensors for landmark generation that are known to the art such as a plurality of cameras and/or laser rangefinders. Landmarks are stored in a data structure with their past untransformed landmarks. New landmark data is matched using previous stored untransformed landmarks. Generally current position is only used for matching when backtracking or closing the loop. Landmarks are grouped with other landmarks that are visible in the same time interval. In these groups, dynamic landmarks are identified computationally efficiently using binning. Using basis landmarks in a group, a map relative to these basis landmarks is generated that is translation and rotation invariant. These relative maps are linked together to form a global map. Current position is non cumulative and generated by comparing currently observed landmarks to their global positions. The advantages of this method and apparatus is that it is computationally real time, has dynamic landmark detection and has comparable accuracy to other methods known in the art.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for generating a map from landmarks, the method comprising:

(a) comparing a current observation of a landmark to stored previously observed untransformed landmarks from past iterations, if there is no match then comparing the landmark by transforming it to global coordinates using current position, comparing the transformed landmark to globally mapped landmarks, and if there is still is no match then adding the landmark as a new entry,
(b) storing the current observation of a landmark with a plurality of past observations of the same landmark that it is matched to for use in later processing,
(c) grouping new landmarks into groups with other landmarks that are visible at the same time interval,
(d) performing dynamic detection to identify dynamic landmarks by using the approximation that landmarks can be placed into bins, and when bins are compared to each other only one landmark is required from each bin for the comparison,
(e) calculating a relative map for each grouping,
(f) linking together the relative maps of all the groups to generate a global map,
(g) calculating current position using the currently seen landmarks compared to their location on the global map.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and Apparatus for Generating a Map from Landmarks

Life of this patent

Method and Apparatus for Generating a Map from Landmarks

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20