Abstract: A method for perceiving physical bodies comprises the following steps: a) acquisition of a plurality of distance measurements of the physical bodies, arising from one or more sensor; b) application of an inverse sensor model on an occupancy grid to determine a probability of occupancy of a set of cells of the grid; and c) construction of a consolidated occupancy grid by fusion of the occupancy probabilities estimated during step b); wherein the inverse sensor model is a discrete model, associating with each cell of the corresponding occupancy grid, and for each distance measurement, a probability class chosen inside one and the same set of finite cardinality and identified by an integer index; and wherein step c) is implemented by means of integer computations performed on the indices of the probability classes determined during said step b). A system for perceiving physical bodies is also provided.

Abstract: An iterative method for estimating the movement of at least one material body in a surrounding space discretized into a grid of cells, includes the following steps: a) obtaining an inconsistency grid in iteration t (IGt), generated in response to detection of a change of occupancy state in at least one of the cells of the grid of cells between an iteration t-1 and iteration t, b) recurrently generating a filtered movement grid in iteration t (FMGtd, FMGts) comprising, for each cell of the inconsistency grid in iteration t (IGt), a posterior probability (P(dt,iA|z1:t), of the material body having performed a movement with at least one movement component characterizing the movement, the movement component forming part of a discrete set of components around the cell, the filtered movement grid in iteration t (FMtd, FMGts) being generated on the basis of the filtered movement grid in iteration t-1 (FMGt-1d, FMGt-1s), of an inconsistency grid from iteration t-1 (IGt-1), and of the inconsistency grid in iteration t

Abstract: An environment sensing method includes the following steps, carried out by a data processor a) defining an occupancy grid comprising a plurality of cells; b) acquiring at least one measurement result from a distance sensor, representative of the distance of one or more nearest targets; and c) computing an occupation probability of the cells of the occupancy grid by applying to the measurement an inverse sensor model stored in a memory device in the form of a data structure representing a plurality of model grids associated to respective distance measurement results, at least some cells of a model grid corresponding to a plurality of contiguous cells of the occupancy grid belonging to a same of a plurality of angular sectors into which the field of view of the distance sensor is divided, and associating a same occupation probability to each one of the plurality of cells.

Abstract: A method of performing simultaneous localization of a mobile body and mapping of its environment, includes the steps of: a) defining an occupancy grid (G) on a region of the environment and a pose grid (?) comprising for the mobile body; b) receiving a first time series of distance measurements (z1, z2) and, upon reception of a distance measurement: either b1) updating occupancy probabilities of the occupancy grid; or b2) updating pose probabilities of the pose grid; and c) receiving a second time series of odometry measurements (u1, u2), each of the measurements being representative of a motion of the mobile body in the environment and, upon reception of an odometry measurement, updating the pose probabilities of the pose grid. An apparatus for carrying out such a method is also provided.

Abstract: An environment sensing method includes the following steps, carried out by a data processor a) defining an occupancy grid comprising a plurality of cells; b) acquiring at least one measurement result from a distance sensor, representative of the distance of one or more nearest targets; and c) computing an occupation probability of the cells of the occupancy grid by applying to the measurement an inverse sensor model stored in a memory device in the form of a data structure representing a plurality of model grids associated to respective distance measurement results, at least some cells of a model grid corresponding to a plurality of contiguous cells of the occupancy grid belonging to a same of a plurality of angular sectors into which the field of view of the distance sensor is divided, and associating a same occupation probability to each one of the plurality of cells.

Abstract: A method to locate material bodies on an at least 2-dimensional occupancy grid G, having a first resolution stepsize RG, that includes a set of cells represented by vertices and segments connecting these vertices. The method uses a sensor for detecting an obstacle which is positioned at source point S, and includes at least the following steps: acquisition by the sensor of a measurement of the position of a material body detected at a point F; defining the coordinates of a point M by using a space discretized with the aid of a spatial stepsize ? which is finer than the resolution stepsize RG, initializing an integer, error parameter, and calculating the value of the error parameter for at least one first vertex of the cell of the current grid.

Abstract: A method for perceiving physical bodies comprises the following steps: a) acquisition of a plurality of distance measurements of the physical bodies, arising from one or more sensor; b) application of an inverse sensor model on an occupancy grid to determine a probability of occupancy of a set of cells of the grid; and c) construction of a consolidated occupancy grid by fusion of the occupancy probabilities estimated during step b); wherein the inverse sensor model is a discrete model, associating with each cell of the corresponding occupancy grid, and for each distance measurement, a probability class chosen inside one and the same set of finite cardinality and identified by an integer index; and wherein step c) is implemented by means of integer computations performed on the indices of the probability classes determined during said step b). A system for perceiving physical bodies is also provided.

Abstract: A method to locate material bodies on an at least 2-dimensional occupancy grid G, having a first resolution stepsize RG, comprises a set of cells represented by vertices and segments connecting these vertices, the method using a sensor for detecting obstacles which is positioned at source point S, comprises at least the following steps: acquisition by the sensor of a measurement of the position of a material body detected at a point F; defining the coordinates of a point M by using a space discretized with the aid of a spatial stepsize ? which is finer than the resolution stepsize RG, initializing an integer, error parameter, representative of the position of at least one coordinate of a vertex of the cell containing the source point S in the discretized space with respect to a path defined in the observation space, calculating the value of the error parameter for at least one first vertex of the cell of the current grid, by carrying out additions or subtractions of integer numbers, establishing the list {ci}