Experimental comparison of 3D vision sensors for mobile robot localization for industrial application: Stereo-camera and RGB-D sensor

While RGB-D sensors are becoming more and more popular in mobile robotics laboratories, they are usually not yet adopted for industrial applications. In fact, in this field, depth measurements are generally acquired by means of laser scanners and, when visual information is needed, by means of stereo-cameras. The aim of this paper is to perform an experimental validation, to compare the performance of a stereo-camera and an RGB-D sensor, in a specific application: mobile robot localization for industrial applications. Experiments are performed exploiting artificial landmarks (defined by a self-similar pattern), placed in known positions in the environment.