Mobile Robotics 1997

After abandoning an attempt to build our own gasoline-powered automated outdoor vehicle in 1995, we purchased two M68332-controlled wheelchairs for indoor and outdoor mobile robotics research. Much of the first year has been spent on various infrastructure projects, several of which are described here. At this writing we are beginning to be in a position to do nontrivial applications and research using these platforms. This compendium of facts and experiences is meant to be useful in getting to know the organization and capabilities of our mobile robots. We first cover the basic hardware and the serial protocol used to communicate between the main computing engine and the microcontroller responsible for sensor management, motor control, and low-level sensori-motor control loops. We describe the interface to the video digitizer, a low-level obstacle avoidance routine, and a general software organization for a control architecture based on video streams. Dynamic nonholonomic models and a virtual environment for debugging and experimenting with them are described next, followed up by a visual servoing application that uses ``engineered vision'''' and special assumptions.

[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]  Masayoshi Tomizuka,et al.  Dynamic Modeling of a Wheelchair on a Slope , 1983 .

[3]  Fadi Dornaika,et al.  Object pose: links between paraperspective and perspective , 1995, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision.

[4]  David M. Auslander,et al.  Feedback Control and Simulation of a Wheelchair , 1983 .

[5]  Helder Araujo,et al.  A Fully Projective Formulation for Lowe's Tracking Algorithm , 1996 .

[6]  Kenji Inoue,et al.  Development of an Intelligent Wheelchair Using Computer Graphics Animation and Simulation , 1991, Comput. Graph. Forum.

[7]  Masayoshi Kakikura,et al.  A 3-D Sensor System for Teaching Robot Paths and Environments , 1987 .

[8]  Robert M. Haralick,et al.  Analysis and solutions of the three point perspective pose estimation problem , 1991, Proceedings. 1991 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

[9]  Larry S. Davis,et al.  Iterative Pose Estimation Using Coplanar Feature Points , 1996, Comput. Vis. Image Underst..

[10]  S. Sitharama Iyengar,et al.  A New Generalized Computational Framework for Finding Object Orientation Using Perspective Trihedral Angle Constraint , 1994, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[11]  David G. Lowe,et al.  Three-Dimensional Object Recognition from Single Two-Dimensional Images , 1987, Artif. Intell..

[12]  David G. Lowe,et al.  Fitting Parameterized Three-Dimensional Models to Images , 1991, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[13]  Azriel Rosenfeld,et al.  Computer Vision , 1988, Adv. Comput..

[14]  Olivier D. Faugeras,et al.  Monocular pose determination from lines: critical sets and maximum number of solutions , 1993, Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

[15]  Mongi A. Abidi,et al.  A New Efficient and Direct Solution for Pose Estimation Using Quadrangular Targets: Algorithm and Evaluation , 1995, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[16]  Michael Brady,et al.  Ground Plane Motion Camera Models , 1996, ECCV.

[17]  Joseph S.-C. Yuan.  A general photogrammetric method for determining object position and orientation , 1989, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[18]  Claus B. Madsen.  Viewpoint variation in the noise sensitivity of pose estimation , 1996, Proceedings CVPR IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

[19]  G. Salgian,et al.  Developing autonomous navigation algorithms using photorealistic simulation , 1997, Proceedings of Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

[20]  Radu Horaud,et al.  An analytic solution for the perspective 4-point problem , 1989, Proceedings CVPR '89: IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

[21]  Geoffrey D. Sullivan,et al.  Model based perspective inversion , 1989, Image Vis. Comput..

[22]  Larry S. Davis,et al.  Pose Determination of a Three-Dimensional Object Using Triangle Pairs , 1988, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[23]  Tao Daniel Alter.  3-D Pose from 3 Points Using Weak-Perspective , 1994, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[24]  Olivier D. Faugeras,et al.  Determination of Camera Location from 2-D to 3-D Line and Point Correspondences , 1990, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..