Active Stereo Vision Depth Perception For Navigation Environmental Map Formation And Object Recognition

ACTIVE STEREO VISION: DEPTH PERCEPTION FOR NAVIGATION, ENVIRONMENTAL MAP FORMATION AND OBJECT RECOGNITION.

In very few mobile robotic applications stereo vision based navigation and mapping is used because dealing with stereo images is very hard and very time consuming. Despite all the problems, stereo vision still becomes one of the most important resources of knowing the world for a mobile robot because imaging provides much more information than most other sensors. Real robotic applications are very complicated because besides the problems of finding how the robot should behave to complete the task at hand, the problems faced while controlling the robot’s internal parameters bring high computational load. Thus, finding the strategy to be followed in a simulated world and then applying this on real robot for real applications is preferable. In this study, we describe an algorithm for object recognition and cognitive map formation using stereo image data in a 3D virtual world where 3D objects and a robot with active stereo imaging system are simulated. Stereo imaging system is simulated so that the actual human visual system properties are parameterized. Only the stereo images obtained from this world are supplied to the virtual robot. By applying our disparity algorithm, depth map for the current stereo view is extracted. Using the depth information for the current view, a cognitive map of the environment is updated gradually while the virtual agent is exploring the environment. The agent explores its environment in an intelligent way using the current view and environmental map information obtained up to date. Also, during exploration if a new object is observed, the robot turns around it, obtains stereo images from different directions and extracts the model of the object in 3D. Using the available set of possible objects, it recognizes the object.

Computer and Information Sciences - ISCIS 2004

The series of ISCIS (International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences) symposia have been held each year since 1986, mostly in Turkey and occasionally abroad. It is the main computer science and engineering meeting organized by Turkish academics and was founded by Erol Gelenbe. Each year ISCIS attracts a signi?cant number of international participants from all over the world. The 19th ISCIS was organized by Bilkent University, Department of Computer Engineering, and was held in Kemer-Antalya, Turkey during 27–29 October 2004. For ISCIS 2004, a total of 335 papers went through the review process and a large number of high-quality papers competed for acceptance. This volume of the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series contains 100 of those papers that broadly fall into the following areas of interest: arti?cial int- ligence and machine learning, computer graphics and user interfaces, computer networksand security, computer vision and image processing,databasesystems, modeling and performance evaluation, natural languageprocessing, parallel and distributed computing, real-time control applications, software engineering and programming systems, and theory of computing.

Computer and Information Sciences - ISCIS ...