Fusion of Sonar and Laser Sensor for Mobile Robot Environment Recognition

A sensor fusion scheme for mobile robot environment recognition that incorporates range data and contour data is proposed. Ultrasonic sensor provides coarse spatial description but guarantees open space with no obstacle within sonic cone with relatively high belief. Laser structured light system provides detailed contour description of environment but prone to light noise and is easily affected by surface reflectivity. Overall fusion process is composed of two stages: Noise elimination and belief updates. Dempster Shafer´s evidential reasoning is applied at each stage. Open space estimation from sonar range measurements brings elimination of noisy lines from laser sensor. Comparing actual sonar data to the simulated sonar data enables ...