Finding Organized Structures in 3-D LADAR Data

Abstract

In this paper, we address the problem of finding concertina wire in three-dimensional (3-D) data. Wire entanglements constitute a major obstacle to the mobility of Unmanned Ground Vehicle because of their widespread use and the difficulty to detect them. We pose the problem in term of finding thin structures organized in complex patterns. Such problem did not received as much attention as linear and planar structures segmentation. We are interested especially in the problems posed by repetitive and symmetric structures acquired with a laser range finder. The method relies on 3-D data projections along specific directions and 2-D histograms comparison. The sensitivity of the classification algorithm to the parameter settings is evaluated and a segmentation method proposed. This paper is an extended version of our IROS 2004 paper.