WIDE ANGLE TRACKING SYSTEM FOR MOBILE ROBOTS

A NEW TECHNIQUE FOR MOBILE ROBOT NAVIGATION AND CONTROL HAS RECENTLY BEEN INVESTIGATED. THE TECHNIQUE USES A WIDE ANGLELENS TO IMAGE SPECIFIED TARGETS AND USES IMAGE DETECTION ANDRECOGNITION TO DETERMINE THE POSITION OF THE ROBOT WITH RESPECT TO THE TARGETS, THUS PROVIDING A BASIS FOR NAVIGATION CONTROL. THIS SENSOR MAY ALSO BE USED ALONE OR WITH OTHER SENSORS TO PROVIDE OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE FOR STATIONARY OR MOVING OBJECTS. THE HIGHER LEVEL PROBLEMS OF PATH FOLLOWING AND REGION FILLING ARE ALSO INCLUDED IN THIS RESEARCH IN HIERARCHICAL CONTROL STRUCTURE. FOR UNSTRUCTURED AND CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS, THE NAVIGATION CONTROL PROBLEM IS CRUCIAL. THIS RESEARCH IS DIRECTED TOWARD THE VISION CONTROL PROBLEM. IN PARTICULAR, A HIGH SPEED VISION TRACKING METHOD IS PROPOSED. A HARDWARE ARCHITECTURE USING BINARY IMAGE PROCESSING WITH MULTIPLE DATA AND PROCESSING PATHS WILL BE INVESTIGATED. IN THIS MANNER, THE RESEARCHERS HOPE TO ACHIEVE VISION TRACKING RATES WHICH WILL PERMIT A VISION BASED CONTROLLER TO BE USED FOR A WIDE VARIETY OF MOBILE ROBOTS.