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3D obstacles persist if there's nothing but free space behind them

What's an algorithm or technique to solve this problem?

A 3D obstacle persists if there's lots of free space behind it when it moves away. I've observed this problem using costmap_2d's VoxelLayer plugin on ROS Jade.

Here's a side view of a ToF camera pointed at a green obstacle. The red triangle is the field of view, and the red dots are points returned by the sensor.

image description

VoxelLayer will mark voxels as shown below. Green is free, yellow is occupied, and white is unknown. Here it correctly sees the green box as an obstacle. image description

Now imagine the green box moves out of the way vertically or sideways out of your screen. Behind the box is nothing but free space, so no points beyond it are returned by the ToF camera. Voxels need points behind them to be cleared, so the robot mistakenly believes an obstacle is still there. image description

The phantom obstacle is a problem, but I can't really fault VoxelLayer's logic. What if some sensor malfunction prevented the ToF camera from getting points on the box? How can I tell the difference between free space and an invalid sensor reading?

Asked by sloretz on 2016-04-04 18:06:56 UTC

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This is a problem I'm struggeling with as well. So I cannot give any hints.

However: Thank you for this nice question! Very nice put and comprehensive!

Asked by mgruhler on 2016-04-05 01:10:13 UTC

Answers

I had a similar issue, but not quite the same as you. I will not offer you a solution, but rather some links that may shed some light on your problems...

https://github.com/ros-planning/navigation/issues/267

http://answers.ros.org/question/32633/costmap-2d-kinectlaser-clearing-problem-when-encountering-objects-with-thin-legs-eg-tables-or-chairs/

Asked by Procópio on 2016-04-05 02:09:33 UTC

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