Vision-based Rough Terrain Mapping
The ISG map (top) is constructed from captured stereo images in the experimental field (bottom).
The colors of each surface grid represent traversability.
The red and light blue are hazardous and traversable, respectively.
Figure shows a result of our approach which divides correctly into traversable and hazardous area corresponding to the picture of experimental field.
Novel map representation called Inclined Surface Grid (ISG) maps that provides the ability of modeling traversability of environment have been developed. The ISG maps have higher degree-of-freedom knowledge i.e. the information of height, slopes (roll and pitch angle) and roughness about the surface compared with typical 2D grid or elevation maps.
The statistical approaches are introduced to construct the ISG maps. Thus the ISG maps can yield few failed grids and have very good performance to analyze 3D geometrical information and traversability. An appropriate planning in the terrain can be achieved by using the result of traversability analysis with ISG maps.