Using D415 or T265 for Wall Following

[NPrak5]

Hello!

I have access to both the D415 and T265 and I am wondering what the best approach is to control a robot to follow a wall at a constant distance from the wall. How might I use either of these Realsense cameras to detect the wall and its depth. Thank you!

[MartyG · Accepted solution]

In March 2019, Intel employee Phillip Schmidt gave a seminar on this subject that is available as a 44 minute video on YouTube. In the presentation summary towards the end of the video, it says that the tracking camera and depth camera can be used in combination for occupancy mapping and obstacle avoidance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62vm0_RZ1nU

Obstacle avoidance is first discussed starting at 3 minutes 20 seconds into the video.

One way to keep the robot away from the walls without using depth measurement would be to record a patrol map for the robot that has a route that keeps it away from the walls. If you wanted to be able to do this avoidance in real-time though, you could perhaps just point the depth camera sideways on the robot instead of front-facing so it is always trying to avoid a wall adjacent to the robot.