A Novel Method to Locate Targets Using Active Vision and Robotic Inertial Navigation Data

Unmanned vehicles are increasingly being used for mobile sensing missions. These missions can range from target acquisition to chemical and biological sensing. The reason why these vehicles are increasingly being used is because they can carry many different types of sensors and can function as a cheap platform for carrying these sensors. The sensing that will be explained in this thesis is target acquisition. Target acquisition is the act of locating the exact position of an "area of interest." Currently this task can be completed with different types of complex range sensors. This thesis presents a type of target acquisition scheme for unmanned vehicles that will use a combination of cheap, simple vision sensors and robot inertial navigation data in order to accurately measure the location of a target in real world coordinates. This thesis will first develop an accurate waypoint driving algorithm that will either use dead reckoning or GPS/ compass sensors. We will then develop a robust target extraction algorithm that will be able to pick out a target in an image. After this is completed we will develop an algorithm that will be used to find the distance to the target from the robot. This algorithm will be based on a type of active vision system. Finally we will integrate all of these algorithms together in order to develop a target extraction technique that will be able to accurately find the distance to the target. With the distance we can then find the real world location of the target.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Simone, Matthew James

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Kachroo, Pushkin

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Wicks, Alfred L.
• Reinholtz, Charles F.

• target acquisition
• waypoint navigation
• autonomous robots
• pattern matching
• image processing

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05142006-185516

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/32751