RANGE ESTIMATION WITH AN OMNIDIRECTIONAL STEREO VISION SYSTEM

This paper presents a compact panoramic stereo vision system based on a double lobed mirror with hyperbolic profile. This omnidirectional vision system is used to obtain range estimations in a form appropriated for mobile robot navigation. As hyperbolic mirrors ensure a single viewpoint the incident light rays are easily found from the points of the image. The geometry of the double lobed mirror naturally ensures matched epipolar lines in the two images of the scene. These two properties make the double lobed mirror especially suitable for panoramic stereo vision because range estimation becomes simple and fast. This is a great advantage for real-time applications.