Vision-based Navigation and Mapping Using Non-central Catadioptric Omnidirectional Camera

Omnidirectional catadioptric cameras find their use in navigation and mapping, owing to their wide field of view. Having a wider field of view, or rather a potential 360 degree field of view, allows the user to see and move more freely in the navigation space. A catadioptric camera system is a low cost system which consists of a mirror and a camera. A calibration method was developed in order to obtain the relative position and orientation between the two components so that they can be considered as one monolithic system. The position of the system was determined, for an environment using the conditions obtained from the reflective properties of the mirror. Object control points were set up and experiments were performed at different sites to test the mathematical models and the achieved location and mapping accuracy of the system. The obtained positions were then used to map the environment.