Patent ID: 7403836

Claim:
An automatic work apparatus for carrying out predetermined tasks, comprising: plural observing camera devices that comprise lenses of non-central projection comprising fisheye lenses set therein, each of the lenses of non-central projection providing a central area and an edge area around the central area, of field of view thereof, the central area having a higher certainty than the edge area in determining a distance from automatic work apparatus to the target; a rotation device to change viewing direction of the observing camera devices; a target image extracting unit to extract a target in images taken by the plural observing camera devices; a view position determining unit to determine view positions of the target in field of view of the observing cameras; a spatial position determining unit to determine a direction and a distance as a spatial position of the target in accordance with the view positions; a certainty determining unit to determine a certainty in determining the distance using the view positions and data regarding the central area and the edge area; and a rotation controller to control the rotation device to change the viewing direction of the observing camera devices in accordance with the determined certainty.