Visual self-localisation using automatic topology construction

The paper proposes a machine learning method for self-localising a mobile agent, using the images supplied by a single omni-directional camera. The images acquired by the camera may be viewed as an implicit topological representation of the environment. The environment is a priori unknown and the topological representation is derived by unsupervised neural network architecture. The architecture includes a self-organising neural network, and is constituted by a growing neural gas, which is well known for its topology preserving quality. The growth depends on the topology that is not a priori defined, and on the need of discovering it, by the neural network, during the learning. The implemented system is able to recognise correctly the input frames and to reconstruct a topological map of the environment. Each node of the neural network identifies a single zone of the environment and the connections between the nodes correspond to the real space connections in the environment. © 2003 IEEE.