Method and apparatus for detecting plane, and robot apparatus having apparatus for detecting plane

Abstract

In a plane detection apparatus, a plane detection unit () includes a line fitting block () to select a group of distance data points being in one plane from distance data forming an image and extract lines from the distance data point group, and a region growing block () to detect one or more planar regions existing in the image from a group of all lines included in the image and extracted by the line fitting block (). The line fitting block () first draws a line Dconnecting end points of the distance data point group, searches a point of interest brk whose distance to the line Lis largest, segments the data point group by the point of interest brk when the distance is larger than a predetermined threshold, and determines a line Lby the least-squares method when the distance is smaller than the predetermined threshold. In case there exists a larger number of data points than a predetermine number on one side of the line L, the data point group is determined to be in a zig-zag shape, the data point group is segmented by the point of interest brk. These operations are done repeatedly. Thus, a plurality of planes robust against noises is detected simultaneously and accurately from distance data including measurement noises.