Industrial vehicles with overhead light based localization
First Claim
1. An industrial vehicle comprising a camera, a steering apparatus, a throttle, wheels, and one or more processors, whereinthe steering apparatus controls the orientation of at least one of the wheels;
- the throttle controls a traveling speed of the industrial vehicle;
the camera is communicatively coupled to the one or more processors;
the camera captures an input image of ceiling lights of the ceiling of the warehouse; and
the one or more processors execute machine readable instructions toassociate raw features of the ceiling lights of the input image with one or more feature groups,execute a Hough transform to transform the raw features of the one or more feature groups into line segments associated with the one or more feature groups,determine a convex hull of the raw features of the one or more feature groups,compare the line segments of the one or more feature groups and the convex hull in Hough space,discard the line segments of the one or more feature groups that are outside of a threshold of similarity to the convex hull of the raw features of the one or more feature groups, whereby a preferred set of lines is selected for the one or more feature groups from the line segments of the one or more feature groups,determine a centerline of the one or more feature groups from the preferred set of lines,associate the centerline of the one or more feature groups with one of the ceiling lights of the input image, andnavigate the industrial vehicle through the warehouse utilizing the steering apparatus, the throttle, and the centerline of the one or more feature groups.
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Accused Products
Abstract
According to the embodiments described herein, a method for environmental based localization may include capturing an input image of a ceiling comprising a plurality of skylights. Features can be extracted from the input image. The features can be grouped into a plurality of feature groups such that each of the feature groups is associated with one of the skylights. Line segments can be extracted from the features of each feature group, automatically, with one or more processors executing a feature extraction algorithm on each feature group separately. At least two selected lines of the line segments of each feature groups can be selected. A centerline for each of the feature groups can be determined based at least in part upon the two selected lines. The center line of each of the feature groups can be associated with one of the skylights.
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Citations
25 Claims
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1. An industrial vehicle comprising a camera, a steering apparatus, a throttle, wheels, and one or more processors, wherein
the steering apparatus controls the orientation of at least one of the wheels; -
the throttle controls a traveling speed of the industrial vehicle; the camera is communicatively coupled to the one or more processors; the camera captures an input image of ceiling lights of the ceiling of the warehouse; and the one or more processors execute machine readable instructions to associate raw features of the ceiling lights of the input image with one or more feature groups, execute a Hough transform to transform the raw features of the one or more feature groups into line segments associated with the one or more feature groups, determine a convex hull of the raw features of the one or more feature groups, compare the line segments of the one or more feature groups and the convex hull in Hough space, discard the line segments of the one or more feature groups that are outside of a threshold of similarity to the convex hull of the raw features of the one or more feature groups, whereby a preferred set of lines is selected for the one or more feature groups from the line segments of the one or more feature groups, determine a centerline of the one or more feature groups from the preferred set of lines, associate the centerline of the one or more feature groups with one of the ceiling lights of the input image, and navigate the industrial vehicle through the warehouse utilizing the steering apparatus, the throttle, and the centerline of the one or more feature groups. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. An industrial vehicle comprising a camera, a steering apparatus, a throttle, wheels, and one or more processors wherein:
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the steering apparatus controls the orientation of at least one of the wheels; the throttle controls a traveling speed of the industrial vehicle; the camera is communicatively coupled to the one or more processors; the camera is mounted to the industrial vehicle and focused to a ceiling of a warehouse; the camera captures an input image of a ceiling light of the ceiling of the warehouse; and the one or more processors execute machine readable instructions to extract raw feature contours from the ceiling light of the input image of the ceiling, group the raw feature contours into a feature group, execute a Hough transform to transform the raw feature contours of the feature group into line segments associated with the feature group, determine a convex hull of the raw feature contours of the feature group, compare the line segments of the feature group and the convex hull in Hough space, discard the line segments of the feature group that are outside of a threshold of similarity to the convex hull of the raw feature contours of the feature group, whereby a preferred set of lines is selected for the feature group from the line segments of the feature group, determine a centerline of the feature group from the preferred set of lines of the feature group, determine a pose of the industrial vehicle, a position of the industrial vehicle, or both based upon the centerline, and navigate the industrial vehicle through the warehouse utilizing the steering apparatus, the throttle, and the pose of the industrial vehicle, the position of the industrial vehicle, or both. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24)
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25. An industrial vehicle comprising a camera, one or more processors, a steering apparatus, wheels, and a throttle, wherein:
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the steering apparatus controls the orientation of at least one of the wheels; the throttle controls a traveling speed of the industrial vehicle; the camera is communicatively coupled to the one or more processors; the camera is mounted to the industrial vehicle and focused to a ceiling of a building structure; the camera captures an input image of a skylight and a substantially circular light of a ceiling of a building structure; and the one or more processors execute machine readable instructions to; extract raw features from the skylight of the input image, determine a convex hull of the raw features, select a preferred set of lines from the raw features utilizing the convex hull of the raw features, transform the substantially circular light of the input image into a point feature, determine a centerline of the skylight from the preferred set of lines, determine a pose of the industrial vehicle, a position of the industrial vehicle, or both, based upon the centerline of the skylight and the point feature transformed from the substantially circular light of the input image, and navigate the industrial vehicle through the building structure utilizing the steering apparatus, throttle, and the pose of the industrial vehicle, the position of the industrial vehicle, or both.
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Specification