Development of Virtual 2D-LIDAR Module by using 3D-LIDAR Point Cloud

Nowadays， 3D-LIDAR is one of the key essential devices to understand the profile of the surrounding environment for safe navigation of autonomous mobile robots． The 3D-LIDAR can capture a 360-degree surrounding profile at once as Point Clouds． However， when a 3D-LIDAR is attached to the mobile robot， many 3D-LIDARs have a blind spot especially near surrounding the mobile robot area． Therefore， most developed mobile robots use both 3D-LIDAR and 2D-LIDAR to reduce the blind spot area and prevent collisions with bumps and/or dynamic moving obstacles． In this paper， we describe a new Virtual 2D-LIDAR Module by using 3D-LIDAR Point Cloud data without actually implementing 2D-LIDAR． Once， the mobile robot capture near the surrounding profile by using 3D-LIDAR， 2D-LIDAR data can be generated which can set a virtual place on the mobile robot． Once the mobile robot acquires the surrounding environment profile using 3D-LIDAR， 2D-LIDAR can be set up virtually at any location on the mobile robot and the data can be acquired． The effectiveness of the developed Virtual 2D-LIDAR Module has been implemented as a ROS module and has been confirmed in actual preliminary experiments