Categorization of Indoor Places Using the Kinect Sensor

Author： Mozos Oscar Martinez Mizutani Hitoshi Kurazume Ryo Hasegawa Tsutomu

Publisher： MDPI

E-ISSN： 1424-8220|12|5|6695-6711

ISSN： 1424-8220

Source： Sensors, Vol.12, Iss.5, 2012-05, pp. : 6695-6711

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Abstract

The categorization of places in indoor environments is an important capability for service robots working and interacting with humans. In this paper we present a method to categorize different areas in indoor environments using a mobile robot equipped with a Kinect camera. Our approach transforms depth and grey scale images taken at each place into histograms of local binary patterns (LBPs) whose dimensionality is further reduced following a uniform criterion. The histograms are then combined into a single feature vector which is categorized using a supervised method. In this work we compare the performance of support vector machines and random forests as supervised classifiers. Finally, we apply our technique to distinguish five different place categories: corridors, laboratories, offices, kitchens, and study rooms. Experimental results show that we can categorize these places with high accuracy using our approach.