An Embedded Vision System for Real-Time Autonomous Localization Using Laser Profilometry

In this paper, we propose an embedded vision system based on laser profilometry able to get the pose of a vehicle and its relative displacements with reference to the constitutive media of a structured environment. Fundamental equations for laser triangulation are developed and encoded for their actual implementation on an embedded system. It is made of a laser source that projects a line-shaped beam onto the environment and an on-chip camera able to frame the laser light. Images are then sent to the inexpensive Raspberry Pi onboard computer, which is responsible for processing tasks. For the first time, laser profilometry is coupled with the correlation of laser signatures on a low-cost and low-resource processing board for vehicle localization purposes. Several validation tests of the proposed sensor have proven the effectiveness of the system with respect to commercially available sensors such as inductive sensors and standard odometers, which fail when the vehicle crosses path interceptions or its wheels undergo unavoidable slippages. Moreover, further comparisons with other vision-based techniques have also proven the good performances of this embedded system for real-time localization of vehicles.