3D Environment reconstruction Using Optical Sensors Installed on Mobile Robot

This paper describes three-dimensional geometric and visual modeling of environments and objects on the original scale. The created model can be useful to remote inspection, geometric measurement processes, and reverse engineering. The combination of depth data provided by a two-dimensional laser rangefinder and texture data from a color webcam attached to the Kuka mobile robot arm is a convenient data set for geometric and visual modeling of real environments or objects. Here we propose a method for 3d modeling, in which, a laser range finder data is used to create 3D points, and finally, the texture data (color of scanned points) provided by the camera were mapped on these points. To create such a map, the external calibration of the camera was performed by a laser rangefinder. The 3D depth and texture data extracted from the environment were expressed in a reference coordinate system using a robot 3D model tracker and a textured 3D model was created in the reference coordinate system.