A single rotating sonar element is used with a restricted angle of sweep to obtain readings to develop a range map for the unobstructed path of an autonomous guided vehicle (AGV). A Polaroid ultrasound transducer elem...
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A single rotating sonar element is used with a restricted angle of sweep to obtain readings to develop a range map for the unobstructed path of an autonomous guided vehicle (AGV). A Polaroid ultrasound transducer element is mounted on a micromotor with an encoder feedback. The motion of this motor is controlled using a Galil DMC 1000 motion control board. The encoder is interfaced with the DMC 1000 board using an intermediate IMC 1100 break-out board. By adjusting the parameters of the Polaroid element, it is possible to obtain range readings at known angles with respect to the center of the robot. The readings are mapped to obtain a range map of the unobstructed path in front of the robot. The idea can be extended to a 360 degree mapping by changing the assembly level programming on the Galil Motion control board. Such a system would be compact and reliable over a range of environments and AGV applications.
robots relying on vision as a primary sensor frequently need to track common objects such as people, cars, and tools in order to successfully perform autonomous navigation or grasping tasks. These objects may comprise...
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robots relying on vision as a primary sensor frequently need to track common objects such as people, cars, and tools in order to successfully perform autonomous navigation or grasping tasks. These objects may comprise many visual parts and attributes, yet image-based tracking algorithms are often keyed to only one of a target's identifying characteristics. In this paper, we present a framework for sharing information among disparate state estimation processes operating on the same underlying visual object. Well-known techniques for joint probabilistic data association are adapted to yield increased robustness when multiple trackers attuned to different visual cues are deployed simultaneously. We also formulate a measure of tracker confidence, based on distinctiveness and occlusion probability, which permits the deactivation of trackers before erroneous state estimates adversely affect the ensemble. We will discuss experiments using color-region, and snake-based tracking in tandem that demonstrate the efficacy of this approach.
The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach for path planing of a mobile robot in static outdoor environments. A simple sensor model is developed for fast acquisition of environment information. The obstacl...
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The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach for path planing of a mobile robot in static outdoor environments. A simple sensor model is developed for fast acquisition of environment information. The obstacle avoidance system is based on a micro-controller interfaced with multiple ultrasonic transducers with a rotating motor. Using sonar readings and environment knowledge, a local map based on weight evaluation function is built for the robot path planing. The path planner finds the local optimal path using the A* search algorithm. The robot is trained to learn a goal-directed task under adequate supervision. The simulation experiments show that a robot, utilizing our neural network scheme, can learn tasks of obstacle avoidance in the work space of a certain geometrical complexity. The result shows that the proposed algorithm can be efficiently implemented in an outdoor environment.
Quality control in industrial application has greatly benefited from the development of tools like artificial vision. In order to obtain a good quality image of the object under investigation, the first step is to use...
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Quality control in industrial application has greatly benefited from the development of tools like artificial vision. In order to obtain a good quality image of the object under investigation, the first step is to use a good lighting system. This paper presents a reliable method which allows to compare several lighting with respect to their capabilities of bringing out defects. This study has been led on textured industrial parts on which four types of defects have to be detected: smooth surfaces, bumps, lacks of material and hollows knocked surfaces. The aim is to determine the best lighting among various experimental sets. This method has two stages: the first one is a definition, according to the knowledge and the shape of the defects, of a pertinent attribute vector which components are defect sensitive. In the second step, discrimination power property of this vector is computed and compared under various illumination using Parzen's kernel. This method insures a well-suited illumination in numerous applications in defects detection and leads to an efficient set of lighting system and segmentation's parameters. Work is under way to generalize this method to multidimensional cases in order to allow interactions between components of the attribute vector.
Developing elementary behavior is the starting point for the realization of complex systems. We present a learning algorithm that realizes a simple goal-reaching behavior for an autonomous vehicle when no a-priori kno...
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Developing elementary behavior is the starting point for the realization of complex systems. We present a learning algorithm that realizes a simple goal-reaching behavior for an autonomous vehicle when no a-priori knowledge of the environment is provided. Information coming from a visual sensor is used to detect a general state of the system. To each state an optimal action is associated using a Q-learning algorithm. As sets of states and actions are limited, a few training trials are sufficient in simulation to learn the optimal policy. During test trials (both in simulated and real environment) fuzzy sets with membership functions are introduced to compute the state of the system and the proper action at the extent of tackling errors in state estimation due to noise in vision measures. Experimental results both in simulated and real environment are shown.
Two new planetary rovers, the SRR-1 (Sample Return Rover) and the FIDO (Field Integrated Design & Operations) rover, have been developed to support future planned science missions of the Mars Surveyor Program. SRR...
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Two new planetary rovers, the SRR-1 (Sample Return Rover) and the FIDO (Field Integrated Design & Operations) rover, have been developed to support future planned science missions of the Mars Surveyor Program. SRR-1 is a 10-kg 4-wheel hybrid composite-metal vehicle for rapid autonomous location, rendezvous and retrieval of collected samples under integrated visual and beacon guidance. It is 88×55×36 cm3 in dimensions, collapsing to less than a third of its deployable field volume, and carrying a powerful visually-servoed manipulator. FIDO, on the other hand, is a high-mobility, multi-km range science vehicle of over 50 kg and about approximately 100×80×50 cm3. It includes a robot arm with attached microscope and body-mounted rock sampling corer.
Diffraction of light by 3D phase grating layers could be effectively used for color image processing in robotic vision. Gratings with hexagonal close-packed structures have the maximum amount of cells per volume unit,...
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Diffraction of light by 3D phase grating layers could be effectively used for color image processing in robotic vision. Gratings with hexagonal close-packed structures have the maximum amount of cells per volume unit, which leads to an advantage for color image processing. Using the 4D spectral method, we solve the wave equation for diffraction of light by a 3D hexagonal phase grating layer of spherical particles. Both ABCA and ABAB structures are considered. Distribution of diffracted light intensity is calculated in the Fraunhofer and Fresnel diffraction zones. For particular gating distances, the incident white light diffracts in three spatially separated maximums with the central wavelengths corresponding to the three primary colors. The wavelength dependence of diffracted light intensity, for incident white light, is calculated for the three maximums. In general case, by using these three primary curves one can reconstruct the color of incident light from corresponding values of light intensities measured in the three diffracted maximums. The conditions for self-imaging of 3D grating layers are formulated and investigated. Intensity distributions for diffracted light in planes of positive and negative self-imaging, and in a plane of lowest contrast are computed.
Rather than design an optimal filter over a large window, which may be computationally impossible or require unacceptable computation time, one can design an iterative filter, each stage of which is designed over a sm...
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Rather than design an optimal filter over a large window, which may be computationally impossible or require unacceptable computation time, one can design an iterative filter, each stage of which is designed over a small window with acceptable design time. Theoretically, a two-stage iterative filter with each stage optimally designed over a window is suboptimal in comparison to the optimal filter over the larger window formed as the dilation of the small window with itself. In practice, however, filters are designed from realizations and lack of precision for design over a large window can result in a directly estimated optimal filter over a large window that performs worse than an iteratively designed filter. Using image-noise models, this paper considers three cases: (1) the designed filters are good estimates of the theoretically optimal filters, the two-stage iterative filter is close to optimal, and as further iterations are considered for both the small and large windows, the performance difference becomes small;(2) the designed filter over the large window is a poor estimate of the theoretically optimal filter and the iteratively designed filter outperforms the directly designed filter;(3) iteration cannot do well because the iteration window is too small for the image-noise model. We will see that, while in terms of logic there may be a significant difference between a noniterative and an approximating iterative filter, their probabilistic difference as operators on random processes can be negligible.
robots relying on vision as a primary sensor frequently need to track common objects such as people, cars, and tools in order to successfully perform autonomous navigation or grasping tasks. These objects may comprise...
详细信息
robots relying on vision as a primary sensor frequently need to track common objects such as people, cars, and tools in order to successfully perform autonomous navigation or grasping tasks. These objects may comprise many visual parts and attributes, yet image-based tracking algorithms are often keyed to only one of a target's identifying characteristics. In this paper, we present a framework for sharing information among disparate state estimation processes operating on the same underlying visual object. Well-known techniques for joint probabilistic data association are adapted to yield increased robustness when multiple trackers attuned to different visual cues are deployed simultaneously. We also formulate a measure of tracker confidence, based on distinctiveness and occlusion probability, which permits the deactivation of trackers before erroneous state estimates adversely affect the ensemble. We will discuss experiments using color-region- and snake-based tracking in tandem that demonstrate the efficacy of this approach.
Hand-eye coordination is the coupling between vision and manipulation. Visual servoing is the term applied to hand-eye coordination in robots. In recent years, research has demonstrated that activevision - active cen...
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ISBN:
(纸本)0819426407
Hand-eye coordination is the coupling between vision and manipulation. Visual servoing is the term applied to hand-eye coordination in robots. In recent years, research has demonstrated that activevision - active central of camera position and camera parameters - facilitates a robot's interaction with the world. One aspect of activevision is centering an object in an image. This is known as gaze stabilization or fixation. This paper presents a new algorithm that applies target fixation to image-based visual servoing. This algorithm, called Fixation Point Servoing (FPS), uses target fixation to eliminate the need for Jacobian computation. Additionally, FPS requires only the rotation relationship between the camera head and the gripper frames and does not require accurate tracking of the gripper. FPS was tested on a robotics system called ISAC and experimental results are shown. FPS was also compared to a classical Jacobian-based technique using simulations of both algorithms.
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