A VISION-BASED LOCATION POSITIONING SYSTEM VIA AUGMENTED REALITY: AN APPLICATION IN HUMANOID ROBOT NAVIGATION

Abstract

In this paper, we present a vision-based localization system using mobile augmented reality (MAR) and mobile audio augmented reality (MAAR) techniques, applicable to both humans and humanoid robots navigation in indoor environments. In the first stage, we propose a system that recognizes the location of a user from the image sequence of an indoor environment using its onboard camera. The location information is added to the user's view in the form of 3D objects and audio sounds with location information and navigation instruction content via augmented reality (AR). The location is recognized by using the prior knowledge about the layout of the environment and the location of the AR markers. The image sequence can be obtained using a smart phone's camera and the marker detection, 3D object placement and audio augmentation will be performed by the phone's operating processor and graphical/audio modules. Using this system will majorly reduce the hardware complexity of such navigation systems, as it replaces a system consisting of a mobile PC, wireless camera, head-mounted displays (HMD) and a remote PC with a smart phone with camera. In the second stage, the same algorithm is employed as a novel vision-based autonomous humanoid robot localization and navigation approach. The proposed technique is implemented on a humanoid robot NAO and improves the robot's navigation and localization performance previously done using an extended Kalman filter (EKF) by presenting location-based information to the robot through different AR markers placed in the robot environment.