Object recognition system for autonomous mobile body

• US 20090254235A1
• Filed: 04/02/2009
• Published: 10/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Inventors: Kuroda, Mitsuhide
• Granted Patent: US 8,793,069 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/23
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 11/12 using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/66 Tracking systems using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/931 of land vehicles

Abstract

The present invention provides an object recognition system for an autonomous mobile body. The object recognition system includes a sensor unit for detecting an obstacle in a target field of view and measuring the position of the obstacle, and an electronic control unit for controlling movement of the autonomous mobile body. The electronic control unit performs the functions of determining a velocity and a travel direction of the obstacle based on changes in the position of the obstacle obtained from the sensor unit over a plurality of measurement cycles, determining a still state of the obstacle, detecting that the obstacle has changed behavior if a current measured value of position of the obstacle deviates a predetermined angle from the previously measured travel direction or if it determined that the obstacle is standing still, and calculating, when a change in the behavior of the obstacle is detected, the velocity and travel direction of the obstacle anew starting at the position where the change has been detected.

Claims

1. An object recognition system provided to an autonomous mobile body, comprising a sensor unit for detecting an obstacle in a target field of view and measuring the position of the obstacle, and an electronic control unit for controlling movement of the autonomous mobile body, wherein the electronic control unit is programmed to perform the functions of:

determining velocity and travel direction of the obstacle based on changes in position of the obstacle obtained from the sensor unit over a plurality of measurement cycles;

determining a still state of the obstacle;

detecting that the obstacle has changed its behavior if a current measured value of the position of the obstacle deviates a predetermined angle from the previously measured travel direction, or if it is determined that the obstacle is standing still; and

when a change in the behavior of the obstacle is detected, calculating velocity and travel direction of the obstacle anew starting at the position where the change has been detected.

2. The object recognition system according to claim 1, wherein the electronic control unit is programmed to perform the functions of:

determining a travel range in which an obstacle can travel from a position of the previous measurement in the current measurement time, based on positional information of the obstacle obtained from the sensor unit; and

if an obstacle is detected in said travel range in the current measurement time, determining that the obstacle detected this time is identical to the obstacle detected previously.

3. The object recognition system according to claim 2, wherein the electronic control unit is programmed to perform the function of determining that the obstacle is standing still if difference between position of the obstacle measured the previous time and position of the obstacle measured this time is equal to or smaller than a predetermined value, based on the positional information of the obstacle obtained from the sensor unit.

4. The object recognition system according to claim 1, wherein the travel direction of the obstacle is an average over a plurality of measurement cycles.

5. The object recognition system according to claim 4, wherein it is determined that a sudden change of direction has been made if the obstacle moves out of the range of plus 90 degrees and minus 90 degrees from the travel direction.

6. The object recognition system according to claim 5, wherein it is determined that the obstacle has made a sudden change of direction if the position of the obstacle suddenly changes direction, at least in two measurement cycles, from position at which the obstacle is located before the two measurement cycles.

7. The object recognition system according to claim 2, wherein the function of determining a travel range includes multiplying the velocity of the obstacle to a measurement time interval.

8. The object recognition system according to claim 7, wherein the autonomous mobile body is a humanoid robot and the obstacle is a human being.

9. The object recognition system according to claim 8, wherein the travel range is determined assuming that the velocity of the obstacle is from 0 to a possible velocity of a human being.