A SINGLE-VIEW, THREE-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT RECOGNITION SYSTEM

NASA NEEDS ROBUST, ACCURATE, AND EFFICIENT 3-D VISION SYSTEMS FOR SPACE STATION CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE, AND OPERATIONS. THESE VISION SYSTEMS MUST BE ABLE TO OPERATE RELIABLY IN CLUTTERED ENVIRONMENTS HAVING POOR NATURAL ILLUMINATION AND CONTAINING POTENTIALLY MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF OBJECTS WHICH MAY BE MOVING. EXISTING VISION SYSTEMS USING CAMERAS ARE TOO INFLEXIBLE ANDSLOW. SIMILARLY, SYSTEMS EMPLOYING LASER RANGEFINDERS ARE SLOW AND SUFFER FROM SEVERE SIGNAL TO NOISE PROBLEMS. TO ADDRESS THESE NEEDS, KMSF PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A STATE-OF-THE-ART OBJECT RECOGNITION SYSTEM WHICH: DETERMINES OBJECT TYPE, LOCATION, AND ORIENTATION FROM A SINGLE VIEW. OPERATES IN POORLY-LIT ENVIRONMENTS CLUTTERED WITH MANY OCCLUDING OBJECTS. CAN DETECT A WIDE RANGE OF OBJECTS STORED IN ITS DATABASE. IS FAST ENOUGH TO TRACK OBJECT MOVEMENT BETWEEN FRAMES. CAN USE RUGGED, RELIABLE HARDWARE.