Lunabotics Navigation PackageTeam May14-20Advisor: Dr. Koray CelikClients: ISU Lunabotics Club, Vermeer Company

Project Scope

NASA Lunabotics

Mining Competition• For university-level students

to design and build a mining robot that can traverse the simulated Martian chaotic terrain

• Points are awarded for autonomy

• Landmarks allowed for navigation

Project Scope

Our Clients

• Lunabotics Club

• Vermeer Companyo Large industrial

and agricultural equipment

Project Scope

ISU Lunabotics Club• Bump detectors

• Laser detector for orientation

• No obstacle detection

• LabView

Project Scope

Our Solution• Create prototype navigation system using computer vision techniques for

navigation and object detection

• Microsoft Kinect for prototype hardware solution

• Open-source software

Design

Platform• Laptop Computer

o 2.26 GHz Dual Core Processor

o 4 GB RAM

• Microsoft Kinecto RGB Camerao Infrared Optics

• Robot ‘Virgil’

Design

Virgil• Built by Dr. Koray Celik

• Representative of Lunabotics robot

• Modified Kinect

• Motor Controllero 4 Motors

• Encoder Controllero 6 Encoders

• Li-Ion Battery Powered

Design

Software• Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS

• OpenCV 2.4.8

• OpenNI 1.5.7.10

• PropulsionClass

Design

Design

Design

Landmark Detection• Acquisition Module

• Color Threshold

• Canny Convolution Operator

• Boundary Tracing

• Rectilinear Object Recognition

Landmark Detection

CannyThreshold

Landmark Detection

Contour All Poly Filter

Landmark Detection

● Unobtrusive landmark, not likely to be found naturally

● Searching for rectilinear shapes with overlapping midpoints

● State-space reduction to reduce noise

Design

Obstacle Detection• Acquire depth map

• Smoothing

• Regression

• Least Squares Plane Fitting

Obstacle Detection

• Plane Fitting

• Least Squares Regression

Smoothed Depth Mat

Normal Floor Plane

Blue - ObjectOrange - Floor

Obstacle Detection

• Threshold regression values

• Contour Filter

• Area of bounding rectangle

Path Generation

• Finite State Machine

• Landmark must be in sight upon start

• Drives towards landmark, avoids obstacles that appear in its path

• Maintains spacial awareness to landmark in case it loses sight

Path Gen

1. Find landmark

2. Move towards the landmark

3. Obstacle detected

4. Proceed on alternate path

5. Turn back to relocate landmark

6. Head to landmark

Accomplishments

Core Requirements

• Robot Movemento Smooth Acceleration and turningo Position and heading

• Landmark detectiono Recognize and distinguish between our two landmarks

• Obstacle detectiono Recognise obstacles above 4 cm tallo Recognize Landmarks as not obstacles

• Navigationo Obstacle avoidance

Challenges

• Landmark Detectiono Noise reduction

• Obstacle Detectiono Uneven terrain issues

• Encodero Set back by hardware (group is more software oriented

• OpenNI Bug o Appears around 3 minute marko Prevents code from scalability in terms of computational

complexityo Caused by XnSensorServer

Testing

Simulated Arena• 3 m X 2 m area

• Virgil is representative of Lunabotics Club’s Robot

Method• Test movement

• Test landmark detection, eliminate false-positives

• Test object detection

• Test obstacle avoidance

Demonstration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRIJiebZkOs

What’s Next?

• Introduce Improved Hardwareo 2.5-D Lidaro High Definition RGB Camera

• Integrate Encoder Support

• Improve Navigation Algorithm

Questions?