Jefferson R. Souza

CaRINA Intelligent Robotic Car: Architectural design and applications

Abstract This paper presents the development of two outdoor intelligent vehicles platforms named CaRINA I and CaRINA II, their system architecture, simulation tools, and control modules. It also describes the development of the intelligent control system modules allowing the mobile robots and vehicles to navigate autonomously in controlled urban environments. Research work has been carried out on tele-operation, driver assistance systems, and autonomous navigation using the vehicles as platforms to experiments and validation. Our robotic platforms include mechanical adaptations and the development of an embedded software architecture. This paper addresses the design, sensing, decision making, and acting infrastructure and several experimental tests that have been carried out to evaluate both platforms and proposed algorithms. The main contributions of this work is the proposed architecture, that is modular and flexible, allowing it to be instantiated into different robotic platforms and applications. The communication and security aspects are also investigated.

Bayesian optimisation for active perception and smooth navigation

A key challenge for long-term autonomy is to enable a robot to automatically model properties of the environment while actively searching for better decisions to accomplish its task. This amounts to the problem of exploration-exploitation in the context of active perception. This paper addresses active perception and presents a technique to incrementally model the roughness of the terrain a robot navigates on while actively searching for waypoints that reduce the overall vibration experienced during travel. The approach employs Gaussian processes in conjunction with Bayesian optimisation for decision making. The algorithms are executed in real-time on the robot while it explores the environment. We present experiments with an outdoor vehicle navigating over several types of terrains demonstrating the properties and effectiveness of the approach.

INVESTIGATION ON THE EVOLUTION OF AN INDOOR ROBOTIC LOCALIZATION SYSTEM BASED ON WIRELESS NETWORKS

This work addresses the evolution of an artificial neural network (ANN) to assist in the problem of indoor robotic localization. We investigate the design and building of an autonomous localization system based on information gathered from wireless networks (WN). The article focuses on the evolved ANN, which provides the position of a robot in a space, as in a Cartesian coordinate system, corroborating with the evolutionary robotic research area and showing its practical viability. The proposed system was tested in several experiments, evaluating not only the impact of different evolutionary computation parameters but also the role of the transfer functions on the evolution of the ANN. Results show that slight variations in the parameters lead to significant differences on the evolution process and, therefore, in the accuracy of the robot position.

Vision-based waypoint following using templates and artificial neural networks

This paper presents a learning-based vehicle control system capable of navigating autonomously. Our approach is based on image processing, road and navigable area recognition, template matching classification for navigation control, and trajectory selection based on GPS waypoints. The vehicle follows a trajectory defined by GPS points avoiding obstacles using a single monocular camera and maintaining the vehicle in the road lane. Different parts of the image, obtained from the camera, are classified into navigable and non-navigable regions of the environment using neural networks. They provide steering and velocity control to the vehicle. Several experimental tests have been carried out under different environmental conditions to evaluate the proposed techniques.

Template-based autonomous navigation in urban environments

Autonomous navigation is a fundamental task in mobile robotics. In the last years, several approaches have been addressing the autonomous navigation in outdoor environments. Lately it has also been extended to robotic vehicles in urban environments. This paper focus in the road identification problem, which is an important capability to autonomous vehicle drive. Our approach is based on image processing, template matching classification, and finite state machines processing. The proposed system allows to train an image segmentation algorithm in order to identify navigable and non-navigable regions (inside/outside roads), generating as output the steering control for an Electric Autonomous Vehicle, that should stay following the road. Several experimental tests have been carried out under different environmental conditions to evaluate the proposed techniques.

Template-based autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance in urban environments

Autonomous navigation is a fundamental task in mobile robotics. In the last years, several approaches have been addressing the autonomous navigation in outdoor environments. Lately it has also been extended to robotic vehicles in urban environments. This paper presents a vehicle control system capable of learning behaviors based on examples from human driver and analyzing different levels of memory of the templates, which are an important capability to autonomous vehicle drive. Our approach is based on image processing, template matching classification, finite state machine, and template memory. The proposed system allows training an image segmentation algorithm and a neural network to work with levels of memory of the templates in order to identify navigable and non-navigable regions. As an output, it generates the steering control and speed for the Intelligent Robotic Car for Autonomous Navigation (CaRINA). Several experimental tests have been carried out under different environmental conditions to evaluate the proposed techniques.

Evolving an Indoor Robotic Localization System Based on Wireless Networks

This work addresses the evolution of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to assist in the problem of indoor robotic localization. We investigate the design and building of an autonomous localization system based on information gathered from Wireless Networks (WN). The paper focuses on the evolved ANN which provides the position of one robot in a space, as in a Cartesian plane, corroborating with the Evolutionary Robotic research area and showing its practical viability. The proposed system was tested on several experiments, evaluating not only the impact of different evolutionary computation parameters but also the role of the transfer functions on the evolution of the ANN. Results show that slight variations in the parameters lead to huge differences on the evolution process and therefore in the accuracy of the robot position.

Vision and GPS-based autonomous vehicle navigation using templates and artificial neural networks

This paper presents a vehicle control system capable of learning to navigate autonomously. Our approach is based on image processing, road and navigable area identification, template matching classification for navigation control, and trajectory selection based on GPS way-points. The vehicle follows a trajectory defined by GPS points avoiding obstacles using a single monocular camera. The images obtained from the camera are classified into navigable and non-navigable regions of the environment using neural networks that control the steering and velocity of the vehicle. Several experimental tests have been carried out under different environmental conditions to evaluate the proposed techniques.

Automatic detection of Ceratocystis wilt in Eucalyptus crops from aerial images

One of the challenges in precision agriculture is the detection of diseased crops in agricultural environments. This paper presents a methodology to detect the Ceratocystis wilt disease in Eucalyptus crops. An unmanned aerial vehicle is used to obtain high-resolution RGB images of a predefined area. The methodology enables the extraction of visual features from image regions and uses several supervised machine learning (ML) techniques to classify regions into three classes: ground, healthy and diseased plants. Several learning techniques were compared using data obtained from a commercial Eucalyptus plantation. Experimental results show that the GP learning model is more reliable than the other learning methods for accurately identifying diseased trees.

Intelligent Robotic Car for Autonomous Navigation: Platform and System Architecture

This paper presents the platform and system architecture of an intelligent vehicle, presenting the control system modules allowing the vehicle to navigate autonomously. Our research group has been developed works on autonomous navigation and driver assistance systems, using CaRINA I platform to experiments and validation. Our platform includes mechanical vehicle adaptations and the development of an embedded software architecture, and its practical implementation. This paper addresses in details the sensing and acting infrastructure. Several experimental tests have been carried out to evaluate both platform and proposed algorithms.