Building a Real-Time 2D Lidar Using Deep Learning

Abstract

Applying deep learning methods, this paper addresses depth prediction problem resulting from single monocular images. A vector of distances is predicted instead of a whole image matrix. A vector-only prediction decreases training overhead and prediction periods and requires less resources (memory, CPU). We propose a module which is more time efficient than the state-of-the-art modules ResNet, VGG, FCRN, and DORN. We enhanced the network results by training it on depth vectors from other levels (we get a new level by changing the Lidar tilt angle). The predicted results give a vector of distances around the robot, which is sufficient for the obstacle avoidance problem and many other applications.