A Visual Landmark Recognition System for Autonomous Robot Navigation

This paper presents a vision system for autonomously guiding a robot along a known route using a single CCD camera. The prominent feature of the system is the real-time recognition of shape-based visual landmarks in cluttered backgrounds, using a memory feedback modulation (MFM) mechanism, which provides a means for the knowledge from the memory to interact and enhance the earlier stages in the system. Its feasibility in autonomous robot navigation is demonstrated in both indoor and outdoor experiments using a vision-based navigating vehicle.