Contour reconstruction using recursive smoothing splines - Algorithms and experimental validation

In this paper, a recursive smoothing spline approach for contour reconstruction is studied and evaluated. Periodic smoothing splines are used by a robot to approximate the contour of encountered obstacles in the environment. The splines are generated through minimizing a cost function subject to constraints imposed by a linear control system and accuracy is improved iteratively using a recursive spline algorithm. The filtering effect of the smoothing splines allows for usage of noisy sensor data and the method is robust to odometry drift. The algorithm is extensively evaluated in simulations for various contours and in experiments using a SICK laser scanner mounted on a PowerBot from ActivMedia Robotics.