Advanced Robot Vision and Communication System

Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Active Robot Vision and Communication System (ARVACS) that incorporates active lighting with fully automatic image enhancement, multichannel digital wireless communication, and real-time video compression. This system will be low-power-optimized for battery operation. ARVACS will be based on POC's advanced technologies and existing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software. POC's technologies will include real-time video compression by an embedded system that can produce 1 kbps to 20 Mbps compressed video (MPEG1-4, DivX, and Wavelet) with less than 15 ms latency, and enhanced wireless communication hardware that is compatible with industry standards such as IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, and HiperLAN2. The Phase I ARVACS model will utilize a leading image enhancement processor such as the NuCORE SiP-1270 and will provide fully automatic image enhancement functions such as noise reduction, white balance, edge enhancement, error correction, and gamma correction. The major innovation of ARVACS will be fully automatic active lighting with an adapting active lighting controller. In Phase I, an ARVACS feasibility demonstration prototype will be fabricated, which will be further optimized in Phase II for power efficiency on a battery-operated UGV target system.