ULTRASONIC RANGING DEVICES

Abstract: An ultrasonic ranging device suitable for use as a sensor on a mobile robot, the device comprising a transmitter (9) for transmitting in a scanned fashion a beam of ultrasonic energy over a target region of interest (11), a detector (13, 14) for detecting return ultrasonic energy comprising reflections of the transmitted beam from the target region and a signal processor (17, 19) for enhancing the signal detected by the detector, which processor comprises a correlator (19) for correlating the signal output from the detector with a reference signal wherein the reference signal is a representation of the actual signal which has been produced by that detector when the transmitted beam has reflected at normal incidence from a plane reference target surface of interest, the processor also including a computer store (21) for storing said signal representation and applying the same as a reference signal to said correlator (19) during detection of a signal representing reflection from a target to be detected.

Description: ULTRASONIC RANGING DEVICES The present invention relates to ultrasonic ranging devices especially for mobile robot applications. Ultrasonic ranging devices are widely used on mobile robots to detect the positions of objects such as obstacles. These devices operate by scanning a region of interest with a narrow ultrasonic beam and measuring the time of flight of signals reflected back to the region of the transmitter where they are detected by a receiver. Although safe and economical ultrasonic ranging devices exhibit a major problem which is inhibiting their wider use as mobile robot sensors, namely that of specular reflection. In situations where target surfaces are not inclined at a favourable angle to the ultrasonic transmitter and receiver (which are usually combined as a single transducer) , eg in the corner of a room, the transmitted beam may be repeatedly reflected. Signals will be detected by the receiver after multiple reflections giving an erroneous range measurement of the target. Researchers in the field of mobile robot sensors have employed a number of processing methods to extract the range of a target from the signals returned to an ultrasonic detector but none has been entirely satisfactory. According to the present invention there is provided an ultrasonic ranging device suitable for use as a sensor on a mobile robot, the device comprising a transmitter for transmitting in a scanned fashion a beam of ultrasonic energy over a target region of interest, a detector for detecting return ultrasonic energy comprising reflections of the transmitted beam from the target region and a signal processor for enhancing the signal detected by the detector, which processor comprises a correlator for correlating the signal output from the detector with a reference signal wherein the reference signal is a representation of the actual signal which has been produced by that detector when the transmitted beam has reflected at normal incidence from a plane reference target surface of interest, the processor also including a computer store (21) for storing said signal representation and applying the same as a reference signal to said correlator (19) during detection of a signal representing reflection from a target to be detected. The said correlator may advantageously be or approximate to a matched filter which compares the- output signal produced by the detector with the said reference signal and produces an output which is a measure of correlation of the two. The matched filter can be approximated in discrete time by a digital finite impulse response filter which applies to the detected signal an algorithm which represents passing discrete samples of the detected signal through a series of windows where the samples are multiplied by coefficients representing (time reversed) discrete samples of the reference signal. Since in practice the noise is not completely uncorrelated within each filter window it has been found advantageous to perform a second matched filtering operation by storing the output of the first matched filtering operation and computing from that a modified reference signal, samples of which may be employed as modified coefficients to operate upon samples of the detected signal. Preferably, the reflected or echo signal from a target surface detected by the detector in the device according to the present invention prior to being fed into the said signal processor is processed to provide broadband noise attenuation in one or both of the following ways. Firstly, the detected signal may be averaged over several recording runs. Uncorrelated or random noise components will be attenuated by this procedure whilst the invariant echo signal remains. Secondly, the detected signal may be passed through a band pass filter. This procedure can be used to eliminate successfully noise in the stop bands but noise of frequency similar to the fundamental remains un-attenuated. For example, for use with an ultrasonic beam transmitted with a frequency of 49.41 KHz a 16th order Butterworth band pass digital filter with 3dB cut-off frequencies located on each side of the 49.41 KHz fundamental may be employed. The output of the said correlator may be applied to an adaptive threshold detector to detect the leading edge of an echo in a given detected signal and thereby enhance the signal produced. Simple thresholding is not normally sufficient owing to the amplitude variations between echoes. The adaptive threshold detector may apply an algorithm to the output of the correlator which represents one of the following procedures. In the first procedure the signal which comprises amplitude versus time is divided into a series of discrete samples across the time axis. The average is caclulated for the amplitude value in all samples. A threshold level above the average value is then set and the amplitude in each sample is compared with the threshold. An output is provided only where the same amplitude is above the threshold. In the second procedure a similar sampling technique is carried out but in this case the threshold is calculated from both the average and the standard deviation of the sampled amplitude values. The transmitted beam may be scanned over a given arc in a series of discrete steps, eg by controlling the direction of the transmitted beam by the action of a stepper motor to which the transmitter is fixed. The outputs from the said signal processor, eg matched filter, obtained for each step in a series of steps when the transmitter is scanned may be mapped to form a two-dimensional image being a radial plot of reflected signal intensity as measured in a series of grey scale levels as a function of distance from transmitter. This image may be enhanced by application of an algorithm which represents one of the following procedures. In the first procedure, the two dimensional plot is divided into a series of discrete samples and a rectangular window is run in steps in a raster fashion over the entire plot to observe the samples appearing at each position of the window. A rectangular desirably square grid, eg 5x5 samples or pixels, will appear at each position of the window. The average intensity value for all of the samples within the window is calculated at each position of the window and is compared with a threshold value. If the average is above the threshold the intensity of a sample within the window representative of the position of the window, eg at or near the centre of the window, is enhanced. If the average is below the theshold the intensity of that representative sample is reduced. In the second alternative procedure the intensity values appearing at the various samples within the window at each position of the window are sorted into ascending order and the value of the intensity falling at the middle of the order sort is found. The value of the intensity of the representative sample of the SUBSTITUTE SHEET window position is then adjusted to be equal to the value at the middle of the order sort. In the device according to the present invention the ultrasonic beam transmitted by the transmitter will in general be a signal alternating at a fundamental oscillator frequency. The output may be emitted as a series of pulses. For the purpose of further enhancing signal to noise quality the envelope of each output pulse may itself comprise a pseudo-random code. Such a code is generated by a control device, the code also being applied to the detector. Alternatively the frequency of the pulses in the output may be frequency swept. Although matched filtering and signal processing as may be employed in the device according to the present invention as described above are techniques which have previously been used in other fields their use in the processing of ultrasonic signals for the control of mobile robots has not previously been considered. Use of the ranging device according to the present invention provides unexpected benefits in this application in that the detection of target surfaces especially in locations giving specular reflection can be carried out more reliably than in the prior art. In any event, in the case of matched filtering the use of a filter reference signal which comprises a computed representation of an actual signal reflected from a given target surface and the use of a dual pass through the filter using as a further or modified reference in the second pass through the filter a signal representative of the matched filtered echo signal from the first pass are techniques which have not been applied in other fields such as radar and sonar. For example, US 3803,598 which is concerned principally with target shape recognition (for military purposes) of distant targets and O-81/00456 which is concerned principally with measuring distances for geological purposes both include correlators which are digital matched filters in which the correlation is essentially between the output (transmitted) and reflected signals. In neither case however is correlation effected between a detected signal from a given target and a reference signal which represents a signal already detected by that same device from a target under optimal conditions whereby the device recognises from the outset an "ideal" target reflection as in the present invention. Embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a block schematic circuit diagram showing the various functional units included in an ultrasonic ranging device embodying the present invention; Figure 2 is an illustration of series of waveforms of amplitude versus time for various signals used in the digital matched filter of the device shown in Figure 1; Figure 3 is an illustration of two waveforms of amplitude versus time for input and output signals of the adaptive threshold unit of the device shown in Figure 1; Figure 4 is.a schematic diagram illustrating how a radial plot of echo signal intensity from target surfaces in a two dimensional scan of a scene is taken using a device such as that shown in Figure 1 and how the performance of such a device is measured; Figures 5 and 6 are graphs comparing the error size versus signal intensity respectively for a prior art device and a device embodying the invention. In the circuit of Figure 1 the output of an alternating electrical source 1 typically of frequency 49.41 KHz (although in principle any ultrasonic frequency could be used) is modulated by the output of a 1ms pulse generator 3 (which could alternatively be a generator providing a series of pseudo-random sequences of different pulse widths) controlled by a control unit 4 in a multiplier 5 whose output is fed into a high gain output amplifier 7 capable of delivering 300V signal bursts. The output of the amplifier 7 is employed to excite the transducer of an ultrasonic transmitter 9 which emits ultrasound signals through air toward a target surface 11 of interest. The ultrasound signal reflected from the surface 11 is reflected and picked up by the transducer of a receiver 13. In practice the transducer of the transmitter 9 and receiver 13 may be a common transducer. The detected signal is amplified by an automatic gain controlled receiving amplifier 14. The items 1, 7, 9, 13 and 14 form part of a commercially available device known as "Polaroid Instrument Grade" transducer. The dashed line X indicates commercially available circuits. The receiver 13 and the amplifier 14 referenced to the output of the control unit 4 form the raw signal detector. The output of the amplifier 14 is fed into a preprocessing unit 17. The noise associated with the detected echo signal fed into the preprocessing unit 17 is attenuated by the unit 17. Firstly, the detected echo signal is passed in the unit 17 through a sixteenth order Butterworth band pass digital filter with 3dB cut-off frequencies located on each side of the 49.41 KHz fundamental lKHz from the fundamental. This filter successfully reduces broadband noise in its stop bands. Secondly, (but optionally) the detected echo signal is averaged over several recording runs. The random noise components will be attenuated whilst the invariant echo signal remains. This second noise attenuation technique is inherently more time consuming than the first owing to the inite speed of sound through air. Typically, ten recording runs are carried out. The output of the preprocessing unit 17 is applied as input to a digital matched filter 19. A reference signal comprising multiplier coefficients for the individual windows making up the digital matched filter 19 is first acquired by capturing the echo signal produced by reflection from a plane specular surface perpendicular to the direction of the transmitted ultrasound beam and recording this information in a computer store 21. A coefficient reference signal for use by the digital matched filter 19 is subsequently computed from the information in the computer store 21. The computation process is carried out offline prior to application of the digital matched filtering operation. The target surface 11 of interest is then probed by ultrasound as described above and the detected echo signal is correlated with the computed reference signal applied into the digital matched filter 19. The output of this correlation process is returned to the computer store 21 in which a modified coefficient reference signal for the digital matched filter 19 is subsequently computed off-line. A further correlation of the detected echo signal is subsequently carried out with the modified coefficient reference signal computed by the computer store 21. The dashed lines from the preprocessor 17 and filter 19 to the computer store 21 indicate off-line preco putation cycles for the generation of reference templates for the filter 19. Echo signals below the noise floor are accentuated and are made clearly visible by use of the technique of matched filtering as described using as reference the echo signal obtained from an "ideal" surface. The use of a second pass of the detected signal through the matched filter gives a superior noise attenuation to that obtained for a single pass. The process of dual matched filtering as carried out by the filter 19 is illustrated in Figure 2. The "ideal" unfiltered echo signal from a perpendicular surface is shown in Figure 2(a). The region S_ of the detected waveform represents a low signal and the region N_ represents high noise. The reference signal computed from the "ideal" unfiltered echo signal and comprising the raw matched filter coefficients for the first pass of digital filtering obtained by a computation using the "ideal" echo signal is shown in Figure 2(b) . The result of the first pass of the echo signal through the filter which comprises correlation of the echo signal with the reference signal shown in Figure 2(b) is shown in Figure 2(c). In this case, the envelope of the echo signal has been made more pronounced by the filtering process and the signal S_ of Figure 2(a) has in this case been enhanced to form a signal S region compared with a lower level noise N . The modified reference signal pre-computed as described above from the matched filtered "ideal" echo signal and used as coefficients for the second matched filtering pass is shown in Figure 2(d). Finally, Figure 2(e) shows the output of the matched filter after a second filtering run to correlate the detected echo signal with the modified reference shown in Figure 2(d) . In Figure 2(e) the noise level has been reduced compared with Figure 2(c) . A mathematical representation of the matched filtering operation is as follows. Optimum noise rejection is achieved if the contaminated signal is cross-correlated with a function of shape identical to the uncontaminated signal. The matched filter can be approximated in discrete time to the use of a finite impulse response filter where the filter coefficients are equal to the time reversed samples of the ideal echo waveform, p[n]. The discrete time matched filter is thus given by Equation 1 as follows: N y[n] = Σ h[i]x[n-i] Equation 1 i=0 where the impulse response coefficient vector, h, is given by: h 1 [i]=p[N-i] Equation 2 Since in practice the noise is not completely uncorrelated within the filter window, a second matched filtering pass using modified filter coefficients are given in Equation 3 as follows, has been found to reduce noise further. h_ = h_ * h_ Equation 3 2 The signal comprising the output of the digital matched filter 19 is further enhanced either in an image processor 21 or in an adaptive thresholding unit 23. In the adaptive thresholding unit 23 the echo signal is processed in the following way. An algorithm is applied to the signal which represents moving a sliding window Wi containing a row of discrete sampling elements over the signal as illustrated in Figure 3(a). The average of the samples within the window is measured and compared to a threshold T which is set according to the following Equation 4: N T[n] = [ Σ x[n-i] ] /(N-l) + K . . . Equation 4 i=0 where n the number of elements in the window, x is the window array and K is a constant. The threshold T is set, in fact, so that an output is provided only when the signal rises well above the general noise level. A typical value for K is 20. This procedure is illustrated in Figure 3(b) where three equal outputs A 2 , B_ and C_ are obtained from three corresponding signal components A_, B and C representing the output of the transmitter and valid and false echo signals respectively. An alternative operation for the adaptive thresholding unit is to set the threshold T according to Equations 5 to 7 as follows: T[n] = V[n] + K 2 S[n] ... Equation 5 N where mean V[n] = Σ x [n-i]/(N-l) ... Equation 6 i=0 and Sn is the Standard deviation N and is given by S[n] = [ Σ ( x[n-i]-v[n] ) 2 /(N-l) ] i=0 ... Equation 7 In this case, the threshold T is set according to both the mean and the standard derivation of the measurement within the sliding window. This alternative procedure provides improved performance at the expense of computation time. A typical value of K_ for Equation 5 is 8. Each output from the digital matched filter 19 is an A-scan result, that is a one dimensional measurement of amplitude versus time of echo signals received from a given target direction. If a series of such results is obtained by scanning the transmitter 9 and receiver 13 around a wide arc, eg 180° in finite steps, eg at intervals of one degree, and recording a result at each step, a two-dimensional map or B-scan may be built up of the recorded echo intensity for each direction angle of transmitted beam. The image processor 21 initially collects outputs from the digital matched filter 19 to build up such a map. Each A-scan echo amplitude is recorded onto one of 64 grey scale levels to build up the B-scan map. The raw B-scan map built up by the image processor 21 is enhanced in one of two alternative ways by the processor 21 as follows. In the first alternative procedure a rectangular or square window is run over the image. The image intensity at each cell within the window is measured and the average value for the whole window is calculated. The average value is compared with a threshold value. If the threshold is exceeded by the average value the intensity at the central cell in the window is increased. If the threshold is less than the average value for the window the intensity at the central cell is decreased. Optimal values for the number of cells in a window and the threshold level (on a scale 0 to 64) have been found to be 6 and 27 respectively. In the second alternative procedure employed by the digital signal processor 21 a rectangular window is again run over the image but in this case the intensities appearing at each cell in the window are sorted into ascending order. The intensity value in the middle of the order is then extracted from the sort and the central cell in the window is set to this value. The procedure is known as rank order filtering. It has the property of performing a low pass filtering operation whilst preserving edges. It removes random isolated noise values whilst preserving contiguous echoes from valid targets. Both image processing procedures which may be employed in the image processor 21 as described above effectively clean the observed image producing a more pleasing form for observation if the image is displayed and viewed visually. The performance of a device as shown in Figure 1 compared to a conventional commercial ultrasonic detector has been investigated as follows. A radial plot of signal intensity returned from each increment of area in a two-dimensional scene scanned by the ultrasonic transducer was built up. The output obtained in each case was compared with the output which is expected from known reflecting surfaces within the scene. Each pixel within the plot giving an erroneous signal reading compared with the distance to the known surface was designated an error pixel and the number of the error pixels was counted each being weighted in proportion to its distance from the relevant known surface. In this way, small range errors are penalised less than greater ones. This procedure is illustrated in Figure 4 where the position of the ultrasonic transducer rotating stepwise is indicated as T and known walls are indicated as W. The shaded area E indicates the area around error pixels in the plot. The number and error weighting of pixels obtained in the above calculation was plotted against grey level threhold for an unfiltered signal obtained using the commercial detector and then for a signal processed with by the device shown in Figure 1 using dual filtering in the digital matched filter 19 and signal enhancement in the image processor. The respective results are shown in Figures 5 and 6. As can be seen from Figures 5 and 6 the error measured as thousands of weighted pixels is reduced to a low level at a much lower grey intensity level threshold in Figure 6 thereby providing a much more reliable output image of the scanned scene.

Claims: Claims 1. An ultrasonic ranging device suitable for use as a sensor on a mobile robot, the device comprising a transmitter (9) for transmitting in a scanned fashion a beam of ultrasonic energy over a target region of interest (11), a detector (13, 14) for detecting return ultrasonic energy comprising reflections of the transmitted beam from the target region and a signal processor (17, 19) for enhancing the signal detected by the detector, which processor comprises a correlator (19) for correlating the signal output from the detector with a reference signal wherein the reference signal is a representation of the actual signal which has been produced by that detector when the transmitted beam has reflected at normal incidence from a plane reference target surface of interest, the processor also including a computer store (21) for storing said signal representation and applying the same as a reference signal to said correlator (19) during detection of a signal representing reflection from a target to be detected. 2. A device as in claim 1 and wherein the computer store in operation applies the said reference signal to the correlator as a series of multiplier coefficients. 3. A device as in claim 1 and wherein the said correlator is or approximates to a digital matched filter which compares the output signal produced by the detector with the said reference signal and produces an output which is a measure of correlation of the two. 4. A device as claimed in claim 3 and wherein the digital matched filter has a reference signal which is representative of the output of the digital matched filter in a previous filter pass using the aforementioned reference signal. 5. A device as claimed in claim 1 and wherein prior to being fed into the said signal processor the output of the said detector is passed through a pre-processor (17) where it is processed to provide broadband noise attenuation. 6. A device as claimed in any one of the preceding claims and wherein the output of the said correlator is applied to an adaptive threshold detector (23) to detect the leading edge of an echo in a given detected signal thereby to enhance the signal produced. 7. A device as claimed in claim 1 and wherein the transmitted beam produced by the transmitter is capable of being scanned over a given arc in a series of discrete steps. 8. A device as claimed in claim 7 and which includes an image processor (21) wherein the outputs from the said signal processor (17, 19) obtained for each step in a series of steps when the transmitter is scanned are mapped to form a two-dimensional image being a radial plot of reflected signal intensity as measured in a series of grey scale levels as a function of distance from transmitter. 9. A device as claimed in claim 8 and wherein in operation the image processor applies to the said two-dimensional image an algorithm which represents dividing the two-dimensional plot into a series of discrete samples, running a rectangular window in steps in a raster fashion over the entire plot to observe samples appearing at each position of the window, a rectangular grid of samples or pixels appearing at each position of the window; calculating the average intensity value for all of the samples within the window at each position of the window and comparing the calculated average with a threshold value; if the average is above the threshold enhancing the intensity of a sample within the window representative of the position of the window and if the calculated average is below a given threshold reducing the intensity of the representative sample. 10. A device as claimed in claim 8 and wherein the image processor in operation applies to the said two-dimensional image an algorithm which represents dividing the two-dimensional plot into a series of discrete samples, running a rectangular window in steps in a raster fashion over the entire plot to observe the samples appearing at each position of the window, sorting the intensity values appearing at the various samples within the window at each position of the window into ascending order, determining the value of the intensity falling at the middle of the order sort, and adjusting the value of the intensity of a representative sample of the window position to be equal to the value at the middle of the order sort.

Inventors: BULL DAVID ROGER, THOMAS SEIMON MARC, BULL, DAVID, ROGER, THOMAS, SEIMON, MARC
Applicants: BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS PLC, UNIV CARDIFF, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CARDIFF CONSULTANTS LTD.
Application year: 1992
Main classification: G01S15
IPC codes: G01S7, G01S15