DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by D1 US 20090103773 A1.
Regarding claim 1 D1 teaches
A method for environment mapping, comprising:
receiving lidar data comprising a plurality of temporal signals[0011](LIDAR Signals are temporal signals), each temporal signal of the plurality associated with a different spatial heading(inherent);[0011]
generating a spatial representation associated with an array in angle space,(fig. 12 Z vs X is theta vs phi)
comprising mapping each temporal signal of the plurality onto the grid, where In the spatial representation is associated with a time dimension and at least one spatial angle dimension;(fig. 13 , 12 )
selecting a set of data slices from the spatial representation; [0016]
for each data slice of the set, generating a respective filtered slice, comprising applying a spatial filter to the data slice; and [0066]-[0070]+[0071]( either 1205 , 1210 or cylindrical filter 1175 )
based on the filtered slices, determining a plurality of processed vectors[0083-0085], each processed vector of the plurality associated with a different spatial heading. [0083-0085](implicit)
2. The method of Claim 1, wherein each temporal signal of the plurality is representative of received signal intensity as a function of optical probe signal propagation time. (implicit it is LIDAR signal which is TOF intensity distribution)
3.The method of Claim 1, further comprising, before generating the spatial
representation, sampling the lidar data, comprising:
transmitting a plurality of optical probe signals into an environment, each optical
probe signal of the plurality transmitted along a different spatial heading;
receiving reflections of optical probe signals of the plurality; and
determining the plurality of temporal signals based on the reflections.[0006-0011](inherent)
4.
The method of Claim 3, wherein determining the plurality of temporal signals
comprises, for each optical probe signal of the plurality: sampling a respective temporal
signal of the plurality of temporal signals, the respective temporal signal representative
of received signal intensity as a function of optical probe signal propagation time, the
respective temporal signal associated with the respective spatial heading along which the
optical probe signal was transmitted. [0006-0011](inherent LIDar signals are time of flight intensity distributions for each scanned point )
5.
The method of Claim 1, wherein:
the at least one spatial angle dimension comprises a first angle dimension and a
second angle dimension, wherein the spatial representation is associated with the
first angle dimension and the second angle dimension; and
each data slice of the set is a two-dimensional data slice.(fig. 12 )
6.
The method of Claim 5, wherein, for each data slice of the set, applying the spatial
filter comprises applying a non-linear filter.([0053] conical or cylindrical filter)
9.
The method of Claim 5, further comprising determining a surface normal of a
surface present in the environment; wherein a first data slice of the set is sliced
substantially along the surface normal.[0083]
10.
The method of Claim 9, wherein determining the surface normal is performed
based on the spatial representation.[0083]
11.
The method of Claim 9, wherein determining the surface normal comprises
performing simultaneous localization and mapping.[0083-0085]
12.
The method of Claim 9, further comprising receiving auxiliary information about
the environment, the auxiliary information indicative of a position of the surface; wherein
determining the surface normal is performed based on the auxiliary information.[0083-0086](implicit)
13.
The method of Claim 1, further comprising, based on the filtered slices, generating
a processed spatial representation associated with the time dimension and the at least one
spatial angle dimension; wherein each processed vector of the plurality is selected from
the processed spatial representation .[0083-0086
14.
The method of Claim 1, further comprising generating a point cloud, comprising
detecting peaks in processed vectors of the plurality.(claim 2 implicit)
17.
The method of Claim 1, wherein the spatial representation comprises a sparse
array, in the angle space, of temporal signals.(implicit fig. 12)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 8, 15, 16, 18, 20 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Additional art US 20040081340 A1 also teaches slicing the data and analyzing it.
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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