{"title":"A vision system for object verification and localization based on local features","authors":"A. Baerveldt","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827622","url":null,"abstract":"An object verification and localization system should answer the question of whether an expected object is present in an image or not, i.e. verification, and if present where it is located. Such a system would be very useful for mobile robots for example for landmark recognition or for the fulfilment of certain tasks. In this paper we present an object verification and localization system specially adapted to the needs of mobile robots. The object model is based on a collection of local features derived from a small neighbourhood around automatically detected interest points. The learned representation of the object is then matched with the image under consideration. The tests, based on 90 images, showed a very satisfying tolerance to scale changes of up to 25%, to viewpoint variations of 20 degrees, to occlusion of up to 80% and to major background changes as well as to local and global illumination changes. The tests also showed that the verification capabilities are very good and that similar objects did not trigger any false verification.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117063397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A flexible exploration framework for map building","authors":"F. H. Wullschleger, K. Arras, S. J. Vestli","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827621","url":null,"abstract":"Presents a framework for exploration and incremental mapping of unknown environments. The framework allows for evaluation and comparison of different acquisition strategies. During exploration a visibility graph is constructed which holds correct topology information about the environment and provides a means for immediate planning in the partially known map. The framework has been implemented in simulation and on a real platform equipped with a 360 degree laser scanner, an algorithm for line and segment extraction and an extended Kalman filter for localization. Structured environments have been explored and mapped in a fully autonomous mode, simultaneously localizing the robot yielding results of satisfying precision. Limitations and problems of our implementation are discussed as well.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130539238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
R. Cassinis, G. Bianco, A. Cavagnini, P. Ransenigo
{"title":"Strategies for navigation of robot swarms to be used in landmines detection","authors":"R. Cassinis, G. Bianco, A. Cavagnini, P. Ransenigo","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827642","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827642","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents a novel approach to the detection of anti-personnel landmines that uses teams of cooperating robots. Following hints that originate both from classical robotics and from biology, we aim to define a set of search strategies suitable for use in an obstacle-cluttered, two-dimensional space. The paper presents the guidelines of the project, the search strategies that were developed, and a description of a simulator that was designed and implemented to test them. Brief reviews of the available techniques, of the sensor technologies, and of the current uses of robotic devices in humanitarian demining are also included.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"98 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124329028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Attention as selection-for-action: a scheme for active perception","authors":"C. Balkenius, Nils Hulth","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827629","url":null,"abstract":"Proposes three principles for attentional control of actions in autonomous robots. (1) Attention-as-action suggests that attentional shifts and the selection of the focus of attention should be seen as actions rather than as a purely sensory process. (2) Selection-for-action suggests that actions should be implicitly controlled by the current focus of attention. (3) Deictic reference is a method of referring to an external object without explicitly representing all of its properties. The three principles are illustrated in two examples: first for a mobile robot, and second for a visually controlled manipulator. In the second example, we also report two learning experiments where a robot picks out the correct focus of attention for a task based on reinforcement learning.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124511106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hierarchical decision-theoretic planning for autonomous robotic surveillance","authors":"N. Massios, F. Voorbraak","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827643","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827643","url":null,"abstract":"Surveillance as a first step towards automating the planning of the movement of an autonomous surveillance robot. We extend a previous proposal (N. Massios and F. Voorbraak, 1998), by including some heuristics based on an abstract representation of the environment. We show, using a concrete example, how these heuristics allow computationally feasible, finite look-ahead versions of the decision-theoretic strategy to escape local minima, and to better approximate globally optimal solutions.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114358939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evolving the morphology of a compound eye on a robot","authors":"Lukas Lichtensteiger, Peter Eggenberger","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827631","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827631","url":null,"abstract":"Reports on an experiment in evolving the morphology of an artificial compound eye with 16 light sensors on a robot. A special robot was designed and constructed that is able to autonomously modify the angular positions of the individual light sensors within the compound eye. The task of the robot was to employ motion parallax to estimate a critical distance to obstacles. This task was achieved by adapting the morphology of the compound eye by an evolutionary algorithm while using a fixed neural network to control the robot.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129249995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Template-based state estimation of dynamic objects","authors":"D. Schulz","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827619","url":null,"abstract":"In order to plan their missions and to carry them out successfully, mobile robots operating in changing environments need to keep track of the state of objects. The perception of changes in the environment and the integration of changes into the robot's world model is therefore an important problem in mobile robotics. Most of today's systems plan their missions based on static models, thus limiting their applicability. We introduce a method to maintain environment models by estimating the state of changing objects, e.g. their current position and configuration, from sensor data. Unlike other methods, which acquire and maintain sub-symbolic environment models, our method automatically maintains a symbolic CAD model. The method proposed is a Bayesian state estimator which computes the maximum likelihood estimate of the state of a dynamic object by matching templates of the object against proximity information obtained by the robot. The algorithm employs Monte Carlo Markov localization to determine the robot's position in its environment. The localization provides a probability density of the robot's position, and matching takes this density into account, to achieve robust state estimates even while the robot is moving. Experiments carried out on a mobile robot in our office environment illustrate the capabilities of our approach with respect to the robustness of the state estimates.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133790718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Acceleration compensation using a Stewart platform on a mobile robot","authors":"R. Graf, R. Dillmann","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827617","url":null,"abstract":"Transporting an object on a mobile platform always transfers accelerations to this object. In many cases this is undesirable, so a compensation would be helpful. There are passive systems, but they can only react and have no other use like manipulating. This paper presents a solution for both compensation of accelerations and precise and powerful manipulation. In order to achieve a compensation a Stewart platform is mounted on top of a mobile robot. Usually a Stewart platform is used to generate accelerations. In this application the acceleration vector of the robot is inverted and sent to the filter, which performs the platform motion depending on the robot movement. This filter handles all six degrees of freedom, so every movement can be taken into account, if it is determined by acceleration or inclination sensors. Furthermore, this combination is also a very precise docking system, since the Stewart platform can easily correct the uncertainty in the robot position.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125621873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Development of a visual object localization module for mobile robots","authors":"E. Sahin, P. Gaudiano","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827623","url":null,"abstract":"Reports preliminary results from the design and implementation of a visual object localization module for mobile robots. The module takes an object-based approach to visual processing and relies on a preprocessing step that segments objects from the image. By tracking the size and the eccentricity of the objects in the image while the robot is moving, the visual object localization module can determine the position of objects relative to the robot using the displacement obtained from its odometry. In localizing the objects, the module is designed to combine the results of two different techniques. The visual looming technique measures the distance to an object using the change in the size of the object on the image plane. This technique is to be complemented by a variant of the triangulation technique that can locate an object using the eccentricity of the object when viewed from two different points. The module-with the preprocessing algorithm-is being implemented to run in real-time on a mobile robot. Evaluation of the visual localization module is being done in an integrated system introduced in the article. The integrated system creates an environment for real-time evaluation of the module as well as other mapping and navigation algorithms for mobile robots.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115940937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multi-agent control system for the symmetric body robot","authors":"K. Nishikawa, H. Yokoi, Y. Kakazu","doi":"10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/EURBOT.1999.827618","url":null,"abstract":"This paper describes a multi-agent control system for autonomous robots, especially, for the symmetric body robot (SBR). The SBR has several interesting characteristics: it has five symmetrical arms, each of them is driven twenty SMA-coils; and each of the five arms has an independent control board on the root of them. The SBR is completely symmetrical as far as detailed components. It has a high degree of freedom for changing its own body. For controlling the robot behaviors, we consider not only to create suitable action selection mechanisms, but also to study its physical body and the effect of changing its body shape. This paper shows some experiments of the autonomous robot that has the ability to change its own body shape actively.","PeriodicalId":364500,"journal":{"name":"1999 Third European Workshop on Advanced Mobile Robots (Eurobot'99). Proceedings (Cat. No.99EX355)","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1999-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121207663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}