Self-alignment of a binocular robot

摘要

We describe a novel method by which a four-axis binocular head platform can autonomously align its cameras so that their optic axes are parallel to each other and to the forward direction of the robot. The method uses controlled pans and elevations of the robot while viewing an unstructured scene to determine lines on the plane at infinity, whose intersection we prove to be the forward direction of the robot. The alignment is completed by fixating the projections of this point in both cameras. We summarize the underlying theory, and present results from a fully autonomous implementation of the algorithm.