A fast and low-cost vision-based line tracking measurement system for robotic vehicles

Abstract

Localization and tracking systems are nowadays a quite common solution for automated guided vehicles (AGV) in industrial environments. The bunch of technological solutions developed in this sector is now being revitalized by their applications in service robots, e.g. for safe navigation in crowded public spaces or in autonomous cars. Related to this field are robotic competitions and races. In this particular scenario, the robot often has to track a line painted on the ground. Line tracking techniques typically rely on light dependent resistors (LDR), photo-diodes or photo-transistors detecting the light generated by normal or infrared Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), arrays of electric inductance sensors or vision systems. Crucial issues for line tracking are: accuracy and reliability in estimating the direction of the moving vehicle with respect to the line and processing speed. Such problems are particularly critical when high-speed mobile robots are considered. To address this issue, in this paper a vision-based technique of moderate computational complexity is described. The proposed solution has been implemented on a low-cost embedded platform and relies on a high frame rate light contrast sensor, a tailored RANSAC-based algorithm and a Kalman filter. The reported experimental results prove that the proposed solution is able to track the direction of the vehicle in real-time even when the field of view of the camera is limited and the vehicle moves at high speed.

The improved automatic control points computation for the acoustic noise level audits

“…Therefore, we decided to test both of our algorithms using a robotic unit that will initially measure the floor plan by simultaneous localisation and mapping in the next phase. The knowledge published in [20] can also be used to navigate the room with the robotic unit. The constructed map is used to compute control points, and the robotic platform measures these points afterwards.…”

“…The article [20] on noise maps outside buildings also used an autonomous mobile robotic platform equipped with a sound level meter to measure noise. The measured values by the robot were compared with a model of known sources and with manual measurement.…”

High Accuracy Attitude and Navigation System for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)

“…The benefits of this technology are lower cost, reduced size and greater reliability compared with equivalent platform systems. As a result, small, lightweight and accurate inertial navigation systems may now be fitted to small AUV [32].…”

Using local redundancy to improve GNSS absolute positioning in harsh scenario

“…Absolute positioning, also called Single Point Positioning (SPP), is the most common GNSS operational mode. In fact, SPP mode is usually adopted by mass-market receivers, which are mounted on tablet, smartphones, car navigation devices, UAVs [3]- [5]; on these devices, SPP is often combined with other information sources, such as maps, inertial sensors or vision systems [6], [7], [8].…”