Abstract: A method for determining the 3-D pose of an object is provided assuming that an approximate pose of the object is known. As a laser range camera scans the object, depth profiles of the object are obtained and stored in a memory. Synthetic profiles are obtained from a model of the object that has been oriented to the assumed pose of the object, by using a conventional raster rendering technique to obtain a series of slices of the model. Once this synthetic profile signature of the model of the object is generated, a comparison is performed between this profile signature and the profiles obtained from the laser range camera. When a suitable match is found, a correction to the 3-D pose is calculated from the offset parameters associated with the match; further refinement may be performed by repeating the process.

Abstract: A method is provided for detecting a collision between a robot and one or more obstacles before it occurs. The robot is modeled by spheres in a voxelized workspace. Each voxel within the workspace is assigned a value which corresponds to its distance from the closest obstacle. A collision is determined to be imminent if the voxel value at the center of a sphere is less than the radius of the sphere in voxels.