Homography-based ground detection for a mobile robot platform using a single camera

This paper presents a practical approach to ground detection in mobile robot applications based on a monocular sequence captured by an on-board camera. We formulate the problem of ground plane detection as one of estimating the dominant homography between two frames taken from the sequence, and then design an efficient algorithm for the estimation. In particular, we analyze a problem inherent to any homography-based approach to the given task, and show how the proposed approach can address this problem to a large degree. Although not explicitly discussed, the proposed method can be used to guide the maneuver of the robot, as the detected ground plane can in turn be used in obstacle avoidance.