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This paper presents the development of a first approach to a vision-based target detection. The ultimate objective of this work is to position an autonomous surface vehicle relative to a target. Experiments in a controlled indoor environment were conducted to test the developed system. The experimental results are analyzed and show that the tracking performances achieve errors in the order of a few...
This paper addresses an agent and high resolution image sonar based underwater vehicle's localization method for underwater docking. A novel concept of AUV docking system is proposed. The agent and the support AUV are connected with a tether. For sensing, the agent uses the optical camera and the AUV uses the image sonar. For the agent's localization, the AUV's image sonar guides the agent, wide range...
This paper is about environment perception for navigation system in outdoor applications. Unlike other approaches that try to detect an obstacle of binary state, we consider here a Digital Elevation Map (DEM). This map has to be built in regards to the guidance system's needs. These needs depend on the vehicle capabilities, its dynamics constraints, its speed etc... Starting with the navigation system's...
Distress inspection is an important task in pavement maintenance. Pavement inspection requires tremendous human resources, so many investigators start developing automatic and robotic inspection methods to increase the efficiency and accuracy. However, the systems they developed are applicable for network-level inspection (large areas, long-distance) but too expensive or too big for project-level...
Automated electric vehicles for public use constitute a promising very efficient and environment-friendly “urban transportation system”. An additional functionality that could enhance this transportation service is vehicle platooning. In order to avoid inter-distance oscillations within the platoon, a global control strategy, supported by inter-vehicle communications, is investigated. Vehicle localization...
We address the problem of vehicle (mobile robot) navigation by combining visual-based reconstruction and localization with metrical information given by the proprioceptive sensors such as the odometry sensor. The proposed approach extends the navigation system based on a monocular vision which is able to build a map and localize the vehicle in the real time way using only one camera. An extended Kalman...
This paper describes a generic method for vision-based navigation in real urban environments. The proposed approach relies on a representation of the scene based on spherical images augmented with depth information and a spherical saliency map, both constructed in a learning phase. Saliency maps are built by analyzing useful information of points which best condition spherical projections constraints...
Visually estimating a robot's own motion has been an active field of research within the last years. Though impressive results have been reported, some application areas still exhibit huge challenges. Especially for car-like robots in urban environments even the most robust estimation techniques fail due to a vast portion of independently moving objects. Hence, we move one step further and propose...
The occupancy grid is a popular tool for probabilistic robotics, used for a variety of applications. Such grids are typically based on data from range sensors (e.g. laser, ultrasound), and the computation process is well known. The use of stereo-vision in this framework is less common, and typically treats the stereo sensor as a distance sensor, or fails to account for the uncertainties specific to...
Visual maps of the seafloor should ideally provide the ability to measure individual features of interest in real units. Two-dimensional photomosaics cannot provide this capability without making assumptions that often fail over 3-D terrain, and are generally used for visualization, but not for measurement. Full 3-D structure can be recovered using stereo vision, structure from motion (SFM), or simultaneous...
This paper presents the work on the design and construction of a new mapping AUV. The vehicle is specifically designed as a scientific AUV for visual mapping, incorporating high-end instrumentation and sensors to allow research in this area with the best technology can offer today. The complete process of development is described, starting with the design criteria and ending with the specifications...
Highly flexible systems require that Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) in a plant navigate autonomously and changes in their missions should not require difficult setup procedures. In this paper we address the problem of localization of a mobile robot in a indoor environment. The robot is able to find its position without any grounded wires, landmarks or laser beacons. The robot uses images acquired...
This paper outlines the control algorithms used in a pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) tracking system for an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), implemented as part of a computer-vision based autonomous convoying system. The system relies upon a Linear Quadratic Gaussian controller to keep the target centered in the camera's field of view using the pan and tilt degrees of freedom. A novel zoom controller, based upon...
P-SURO is a prototype autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), which is under development as a test-bed for developing underwater technologies such as underwater vision, underwater navigation, and guidance. This vehicle is a hovering type with four thrusters mounted to steer its 6DOF underwater motion, a color camera is mounted at the vehicle's nose for underwater vision, and an AHRS combined with one...
This paper describes a positioning model of an autonomous underwater vehicle attaining an underwater target equipped with an acoustic buoy. The model combines acoustic and vision-based navigation principles. The acoustic guidance assumes a one-way asynchronous signal exchanging mode. A vision-based positioning employs log-polar transformations of camera images. A PID controller is used to change the...
This paper describes the design and testing of a technique to enable long-range autonomous navigation using a stereo camera as the only sensor. During a learning phase, the rover is piloted along a route capturing stereo images. The images are processed into a manifold map of topologically-connected submaps that may be used for localization during an autonomous repeat traverse. Path following in non-planar...
This paper proposes a monocular vision solution to simultaneous detection of multiple lanes in navigable regions/urban roads using accumulator voting. Unlike other approaches in literature, this paper first examines the extent of lane parameters required for continuous control of any vehicle manually or autonomously. The accumulator-based algorithm is designed using this fundamental control knowledge...
Within the research on Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), the field on flight control and autonomous mission execution is one of the most active. A crucial point is the localization of the vehicle, which is especially difficult in unknown, GPS-denied environments. This paper presents a novel vision based approach, where the vehicle is localized using a downward looking monocular camera. A state-of-the-art...
Chemical properties of lake water can provide valuable insight into its ecology. Lakes that are permanently frozen over with ice are generally inaccessible to comprehensive exploration by humans. This paper describes the integration of several novel and existing technologies into an autonomous underwater robot, ENDURANCE, that was successfully used for gathering scientific data in West Lake Bonney...
This paper presents a visual servoing control scheme that is applied to an underwater robotic vehicle. The objective of the proposed control methodology is to provide a human operator the capability to move the vehicle without loosing the target from the vision system's field of view. On-line estimation of the vehicle states is achieved by fusing data from a Laser Vision System (LVS) and an Inertial...
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