Ultrasonic signals coming from rotary sonar sensors in a robot gives us several features about the environment. This enables us to locate and classify the objects in the scenario of the robot. Each object and reflector produces a series of peaks in the amplitude of the signal. The radial and angular position of the sonar sensor gives information about location and their amplitudes offer information about the nature of the surface. Early works showed that the amplitude can be modeled and used to classify objects with very good results at short distances-80% average success in classifying both walls and corners at distances less than 1.5 m. In this paper, a new set of geometric features derived from the amplitude analysis of the echo is presented. These features constitute a set of characteristics that can be used to improve the results of classification at distances from 1.5 m to 4 m. Also, a comparative study on classification algorithms widely used in pattern recognition techniques has been carried out for sensor distances ranging between 0.5 to 4 m, and with incidence angles ranging between 20° to 70°. Experimental results show an enhancement on the success in classification rates when these geometric features are considered.
Keywords: classification algorithms; map building; target classification; target localization; ultrasonic sensors.