Stereo-Vision Based 3D Modeling and Localization for Unmanned Vehicles

Safety and operational demands require that operators of unmanned security and defense vehicles be located at safe distances. The capability of creating photo-realistic 3D models using on-board sensors on unmanned vehicles will improve the operators' situational awareness. Instant Scene Modeler (iSM) is a vision system for generating calibrated photo-realistic 3D models of unknown environments quickly using stereo image sequences. Equipped with iSM, unmanned military vehicles can capture stereo images and create 3D models to be sent back to the base station, while they explore unknown environments. Rapid access to 3D models will increase the operator situational awareness and allow better mission planning and execution, as the models can be visualized from different views and used for relative measurements. Moreover, iSM also recovers the camera motion, also known as the visual odometry. As wheel odometry error grows over time, this can help improve the wheel odometry for better localization. Apart from unmanned vehicles, iSM has also been used in forensics and mining applications, for creating 3D models of crime scenes and of the mine tunnels respectively.

[1]  Robert C. Bolles,et al.  Random sample consensus: a paradigm for model fitting with applications to image analysis and automated cartography , 1981, CACM.

[2]  Christopher G. Harris,et al.  A Combined Corner and Edge Detector , 1988, Alvey Vision Conference.

[3]  Paul J. Besl,et al.  A Method for Registration of 3-D Shapes , 1992, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[4]  Marc Levoy,et al.  Zippered polygon meshes from range images , 1994, SIGGRAPH.

[5]  Ulrich Neumann,et al.  A self-tracking augmented reality system , 1996, VRST.

[6]  Jitendra Malik,et al.  Modeling and Rendering Architecture from Photographs: A hybrid geometry- and image-based approach , 1996, SIGGRAPH.

[7]  Marc Rioux,et al.  A texture-mapping approach for the compression of colored 3D triangulations , 1996, The Visual Computer.

[8]  Gerhard Roth,et al.  An Efficient Volumetric Method for Building Closed Triangular Meshes from 3-D Image and Point Data , 1997, Graphics Interface.

[9]  Andrew W. Fitzgibbon,et al.  Automatic Camera Recovery for Closed or Open Image Sequences , 1998, ECCV.

[10]  Clark F. Olson,et al.  Robust stereo ego-motion for long distance navigation , 2000, Proceedings IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. CVPR 2000 (Cat. No.PR00662).

[11]  Andrew Zisserman,et al.  New Techniques for Automated Architectural Reconstruction from Photographs , 2002, ECCV.

[12]  James J. Little,et al.  Mobile Robot Localization and Mapping with Uncertainty using Scale-Invariant Visual Landmarks , 2002, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[13]  David Nistér.  Automatic passive recovery of 3D from images and video , 2004, Proceedings. 2nd International Symposium on 3D Data Processing, Visualization and Transmission, 2004. 3DPVT 2004..

[14]  G LoweDavid,et al.  Distinctive Image Features from Scale-Invariant Keypoints , 2004 .

[15]  Reinhard Koch,et al.  Visual Modeling with a Hand-Held Camera , 2004, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[16]  Carsten Rother,et al.  Linear Multi View Reconstruction and Camera Recovery Using a Reference Plane , 2002, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[17]  François Blais.  Review of 20 years of range sensor development , 2004, J. Electronic Imaging.

[18]  Roberto Cipolla,et al.  Modelling and Interpretation of Architecture from Several Images , 2004, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[19]  James J. Little,et al.  Vision-based global localization and mapping for mobile robots , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[20]  Piotr Jasiobedzki,et al.  Instant Scene Modeler for Crime Scene Reconstruction , 2005, 2005 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR'05) - Workshops.

[21]  T. Barfoot,et al.  VISION-BASED LOCALIZATION AND TERRAIN MODELING FOR PLANETARY ROVERS , 2005 .

[22]  Brian Yamauchi,et al.  The Wayfarer modular navigation payload for intelligent robot infrastructure , 2005, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[23]  Piotr Jasiobedzki,et al.  Photo-realistic 3D model reconstruction , 2006, Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006..

[24]  Brian Yamauchi.  Autonomous urban reconnaissance using man-portable UGVs , 2006, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[25]  Jan-Michael Frahm,et al.  Towards Urban 3D Reconstruction from Video , 2006, Third International Symposium on 3D Data Processing, Visualization, and Transmission (3DPVT'06).

[26]  Larry H. Matthies,et al.  Two years of Visual Odometry on the Mars Exploration Rovers , 2007, J. Field Robotics.

[27]  Piotr Jasiobedzki,et al.  3D modeling of environments contaminated with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) agents , 2008, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.