Environment recognizing device, environment recognizing method, route planning device, route planning method and robot

Abstract

An environment recognizing device and an environment recognizing method can draw an environment map for judging if it is possible to move a region where one or more than one steps are found above or below a floor, a route planning device and a route planning method that can appropriately plan a moving route, using such an environment map and a robot equipped with such an environment recognizing device and a route planning device. The robot comprises an environment recognizing section including a plurality of plane extracting sectionadapted to compute plane parameters from a parallax image or a distance image and extract a plurality of planes including the floor surface, an obstacle recognizing sectionadapted to recognize obstacles on the plurality of planes including the floor surface and an environment map updating sectionadapted to draw an environment map (obstacle map) for each of the planes on the basis of the result of recognition of the obstacle recognizing sectionand update the existing environment maps and a route planning sectionadapted to plan a route on the basis of the environment maps. The route planning sectionselects a plane as route coordinate when an obstacle is found on it in the environment map of the floor surface but not found in the environment map of the plane.