Visual Localisation in Dynamic Non-uniform Lighting
Dr. Stephen Nuske
Postdoctoral Researcher
Field Robotics Center
Carnegie Mellon University
Thursday, November 20th
Abstract: For vision to succeed as a perceptual mechanism in general field robotic applications, vision systems must overcome the challenges presented by the lighting conditions. Many current approaches rely on decoupling the effects of lighting from the process, which is not possible in many situations -- not surprising considering an image is fundamentally an array of light measurements. This talk will describe two different visual localisation systems designed for two different field robot applications and were both designed to address the lighting challenges in their respective application environments.
The first visual localisation system discussed is for industrial ground vehicles operating outdoors. The system employs an invariant map combined with a robust localisation algorithm and an intelligent exposure control algorithm which together permit reliable localisation in a wide range of outdoor lighting conditions.
The second system discussed is for submarines navigating underwater structures, where the only light source is a spotlight mounted onboard the vehicle. The proposed system explicitly models the light source within the localisation framework which serves to predict the changing appearance of the structure. Experiments reveal that this system that understands the effects of the lighting can solve this difficult visual localisation scenario which conventional approaches struggle to solve.
The results of the two systems are encouraging, given the extremely challenging dynamic non-uniform lighting in each environment and both systems will continue to be developed with industry partners into the future.
Speaker Bio: Stephen's research is in vision systems for mobile robots, focusing on the creation of practical systems that can deal with the problems arising from dynamic non-uniform lighting conditions. Stephen began his undergraduate studies at the University of Queensland, Australia, in Software Engineering. His undergraduate thesis was on the vision system for the university's robot soccer team that placed second at the RoboCup in Portugal. During his undergraduate years he gained work experience at BSD Robotics; a company that develops equipment for automated medical laboratories. After receiving his undergraduate degree Stephen began a PhD based at the Autonomous Systems Laboraty at CSIRO in Australia. He has spent three months during his PhD at INRIA in Grenoble; a French national institute for computer science. Stephen is now starting a position here at CMU in the Field Robotics Center under Sanjiv Singh.
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