Outdoor navigation based on visual information

WOLF, Denis; OSORIO, Fernando; SIMOES, Eduardo1 PESSIN, Gustavo; FERNANDES, Leandro1 HATA, Alberto; SHINZATO, Patrick; DIAS, Mauricio; COUTO, Leandro1
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Instituto de Cincias Matemticas e de Computao - ICMC Mobile Robotics Laboratory - LRM Universidade de So Paulo USP So Carlos-SP, Brasil

The LRM Lab activities are focused in the development of research and applications using intelligent mobile robots and vehicles. One of our main research focus is on autonomous navigation in outdoor environments. In order to navigate safely, robots must be able detect obstacles and depression, and avoid them. LRM has been working on terrain mapping techniques that are capable of represent details of the terrain in a 3D representation and classify the terrain according to its navigability.
Laboratory: LRM-ICMC-USP EESC-USP

Web: INCT- SEC GT2: http://www.inct-sec.org/ LRM-ICMC: http://www.lrm.icmc.usp.br/

Funding: USP INCT-SEC FAPESP, CNPq, CAPES, Ministrio da Cincia e Tecnologia Computer Assisted Vehicle Driving LRM: Mobile Robotics Lab. ICMC - USP So Carlos

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Researchers: Prof. Dr. Denis Wolf, Prof. Dr. Fernando Osrio, Prof. Dr. Eduardo Simes Graduate Students: Gustavo Pessin, Leandro Fernandes (Ph.D. Students) Alberto Hata, Patrick Shinzato, Mauricio A. Dias, Leandro Couto (M.Sc. Students) Project SENA: Mechatronics EESC - USP So Carlos Researchers: Prof. Dr. Glauco Caurin, Prof. Dr. Marcelo Becker, Prof. Dr. Valdir Grassi Jr., Prof. Dr. Adriano Siqueira, Prof. Dr. Daniel Varela Magalhes General Description: The LRM Lab (Laboratrio de Robtica Mvel / Mobile Robotics Laboratory) is part of the ICMC-USP (Univesity of So Paulo), located at So Carlos, Brazil. This research laboratory has facilities used to develop hardware and software for mobile robotic systems, where the LRM activities are aligned and focused mainly on both three main Task Groups (GT) of the INCT-SEC: GT1 Indoor Tactical Mobile Robot (Service and Security Robots / Single or Multiple Robots) Desenvolvimento de robs tticos para ambientes internos Coord. by Prof. F. Osrio GT2 Autonomous Grounded Vehicles (Assisted and Autonomous Vehicle Driving) Desenvolvimento de veculos terrestres e autnomos Coord. by Prof. D. Wolf GT3 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Autonomous Airplanes, Aerial Missions)
Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Areos No Tripulados Coord. by Prof. Onofre Trindade Jr.

The LRM Lab activities are focused in the development of research and applications using intelligent mobile robots and vehicles. One of our main research focus is on autonomous navigation in outdoor environments. Outdoor space navigation in real scenarios and unknown terrain are certainly the more complex problems. Beyond the obstacles avoidance, is necessary that the mobile robot can identify the region where it can navigate safely. The terrain on outdoors is composed by a variety of elements like grass, gardens, sidewalks, streets and gravels. These elements may have different colors and textures allowing developing a vision-based system. The first step to build a vision-based outdoor navigation system is to classify outdoor spaces into two classes: navigable region and non-navigable region. The navigable region is the surface where a mobile robot can travel safely. After its detection, other algorithms can perform path planning and reactive obstacle avoidance. LRM has been using data obtained by a video camera to identify parts of the terrain that are adequate for navigation (part of the road). After the image is obtained, several attributes are calculated for each part of the image (block). After that, we use a supervised learning algorithm to classify each image block into navigable or non-navigable.

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Terrain classification: green areas are correctly classified Our experiments have been conducted in realistic environments under hard situations such as: dirty roads and different light conditions. The more recent version of the classification algorithm is based on a combination of artificial neural networks.

Confidence level

Road detected

Multiple ANN image classification.

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Additional References:
1) Shinzato, P. Y. ; Wolf, D. F. . Path Recognition for Outdoor Navigation. In: IEEE Latin American Robotics Symposium, 2009, Valparaiso. IEEE Latin American Robotics Symposium, 2009. p. 1-5. 2) Shinzato, P. Y. ; FERNANDES, L. C. ; OSORIO, F. S. ; Wolf, D. F. . Path Recognition for Outdoor Navigantion Using Artificial Neural Networks: Case Study. In: nternational Conference on Industrial Technology, 2009, Vina del Mar. IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology - ICIT 2010, 2009. p. 1-6.