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Determination of the correct positional relation is vital for human driver. For unmanned vehicles, the obstacle position in front of the view is also necessary for collision detection. The paper is devoted to the problem that estimates the vehicle position in real world using only a single 2D image. The estimation is an ill-posed problem due to the projective transform; however, through incorporating...
We present an approach for the inspection of vertical pole-like infrastructure using a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle and shared autonomy. Inspecting vertical structures, such as light and power distribution poles, is a time consuming, dangerous and expensive task with high operator workload. To address these issues, we propose a VTOL platform that can operate at close-quarters,...
In this paper, we present a vision-based path following algorithm for a non-holonomic wheeled platform. The algorithm is based on choosing control actions that minimise the value of a potential field cost function calculated directly from the image plane. The algorithm is suitable for teach and replay or leader follower implementations where the desired path is represented as a collection of images.
This paper presents a design rationale and describes the design of a biomimetic underwater robot U-CAT. U-CAT is an autonomous, small-size and low cost vehicle, currently under development, for shipwreck penetration. The robot will assist archaeologists during possibly dangerous and expensive shipwreck exploration missions. It reduces the need of using divers, while being able to go to places that...
The problem of Adaptation from Participation (AfP) aims to improve the efficiency of a human-robot team by adapting a robot's autonomous systems and behaviors based on command-level input from a human supervisor. As a solution to AfP, the Adaptive Parameter EXploration (APEX) algorithm continuously explores the space of all possible parameter configurations for the robot's autonomous system in an...
Moving obstacle avoidance is a fundamental requirement for any robot operating in real environments, where pedestrians, bicycles and cars are present. In this work, we design and validate a new approach that takes explicitly into account obstacle velocities, to achieve safe visual navigation in outdoor scenarios. A wheeled vehicle, equipped with an actuated pinhole camera and with a lidar, must follow...
Stereo-based visual odometry algorithms are heavily dependent on an accurate calibration of the rigidly fixed stereo pair. Even small shifts in the rigid transform between the cameras can impact on feature matching and 3D scene triangulation, adversely affecting pose estimates and applications dependent on long-term autonomy. In many field-based scenarios where vibration, knocks and pressure change...
This paper presents the main features and capabilities of a developed system based on augmented virtuality (AV), which is devoted to the assisted navigation of teleoperated robots. The goal is to provide users with a greater perception of the robot navigation environment that improves the accuracy in teleoperation tasks and reduces the workload required to drive. The developed system is a mixed-perspective...
In this paper, we study the problem of Cooperative Localization (CL) for two robots, each equipped with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and a camera. We present an algorithm that enables the robots to exploit common features, observed over a sliding-window time horizon, in order to improve the localization accuracy of both vehicles. In contrast to existing CL methods, which require robot-to-robot...
In this paper, we design and validate a new tentacle-based approach, for avoiding obstacles during appearance-based navigation with a wheeled mobile robot. In the past, we have developed a framework for safe visual navigation. The robot follows a path represented as a set of key images, and during obstacle circumnavigation, the on-board camera is actuated to maintain scene visibility. In those works,...
We are developing a guide robot and an autonomous small vehicle to assist the visually impaired person and the aged. Various functions for support are installed in the guide robot, especially, obstacle avoidance functions are necessary to ensure the safety of the user. When the guide robot is moving, the avoidance of not only the static objects but also moving objects is necessary. As the guide robot...
This paper describes the design and testing of a system to enable large scale cooperative navigation of autonomous vehicles moving on a priori unknown routes in changing environments. A large-scale learning-mapping approach and a replay-localization method are combined to achieve cooperative navigation. The mapping approach is based on a proposed hierarchical/hybrid BiCam SLAM approach-global level...
We are developing a semi-autonomous robot system for a power distribution line maintenance tasks and making task performance tests. If you execute a task for example “inserting bolt”, the robot system works autonomously. When we direct “Remove insulator”, in the vision system detects an insulator using a camera image, and then the robot arm approaches the insulator. This camera is fixed at end effector...
The authors developed a robotic control vehicle for measuring the radiation in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. There are a lot of hotspots in the nuclear power plant (over several tens mSv/h). Heavy radiation prevents humans from searching and reconstructing it. It is essential to measure the radiation to ensure worker safety. The developed robotic control vehicle can measure radiation...
We describe a system which follows “trails” for autonomous outdoor robot navigation. Through a combination of appearance and structural cues derived from stereo omnidirectional color cameras, the algorithm is able to detect and track rough paths despite widely varying tread material, border vegetation, and illumination conditions. The approaching trail region is modeled as a circular arc segment of...
Vast mineral resources of precious metals such as gold remain trapped and unexploited due to the lack of economical and practical means of exploration. This requires the development of alternate exploitation techniques. Mining robots form a significant alternative to convention mining techniques. However, there are several practical limitations that make such systems difficult to implement in practice...
This paper presents a method for computing the visual odometry of ground vehicles. By mounting a downward-looking camera on the vehicle, it can recover the motion of the vehicle only by using the video input. Different from other feature based algorithms, the key technique deployed in this system is an appearance-based approach — template matching. A rotated template matching approach is used for...
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...
On account of the poor anti-nose performance and the complicated calibration process in the existing algorithms of the vehicle camera self-calibration, a method based on the single octagonal template is proposed in this paper. This method takes advantage of the character of cross ratio and the harmonic conjugate in the projective geometry and the relevant reasoning of Laguerre theory. With this method,...
One of the research areas that has received more and more interest during the last years is the development of driver assistant systems and semi-autonomous cars. However, densely populated environments like city centers are still a challenge for the operation of such systems. In this paper, we present approaches to two of the major tasks for autonomous driving in urban environments: self-localization...
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