In this paper, we present an efficient approach to obstacle detection for humanoid robots based on monocular images and sparse laser data. We particularly consider collision-free navigation with the Nao humanoid, which is the most popular small-size robot nowadays. Our approach first analyzes the scene around the robot by acquiring data from a laser range finder installed in the head. Then, it uses the knowledge about obstacles identified in the laser data to train visual classifiers based on color and texture information in a self-supervised way. While the robot is walking, it applies the learned classifiers to the camera images to decide which areas are traversable. As we show in the experiments, our technique allows for safe and efficient humanoid navigation in real-world environments, even in the case of robots equipped with low-end hardware such as the Nao, which has not been achieved before. Furthermore, we illustrate that our system is generally applicable and can also support the traversability estimation using other combinations of camera and depth data, e.g. from a Kinect-like sensor.
Self-supervised obstacle detection for humanoid navigation using monocular vision and sparse laser data
