Visual robot navigation

这项研究计划的目标是开发机器人在非结构化环境中导航的方法。非结构化环境是指那些不是专门为机器人操作而设计的环境。这里采取的方法部分受到生物模型的启发。目前对蜜蜂、蚂蚁和黄蜂等昆虫导航的看法是，这些昆虫在整个环境中捕捉“快照图像”。然后它们使用一种名为视觉归位的程序在快照位置之间移动。这项研究将把类似的方法应用到机器人身上。机器人导航是一个困难的问题，有两个根本原因：1)使用里程计信息来估计位置会产生累积误差。2换句话说，机器人走得越远，它对自己的位置就越不确定。2)外观相同的地方无法区分。有趣的是，现有的大多数方法都可以解决上述其中一个困难，但很少同时解决这两个困难。这项研究计划将利用视觉归位来允许机器人在以前捕获快照图像的地方之间旅行。我们将从基于归位的现有导航模型开始，并加入其他见解，以解决上述问题。这项研究的期望最终产品将是一套允许机器人在已知地点之间稳健行走的方法。但挑战是使这些方法真正健壮，以便利用可用的视觉线索，同时忽略噪音。强健导航机器人的应用既多又多样。例如，一些应用是自动驾驶、行星探索、搜救、监控、遥感和家庭清洁。

The objective of this research program is to develop methods for robots to navigate in unstructured environments.  Unstructured environments are those which have not been specifically designed for robot operation.  The approach taken here is partially inspired by biological models.  The current view of navigation in insects such as bees, ants, and wasps is that these insects capture "snapshot images" throughout their environment.  They then use a procedure called visual homing to move between snapshot positions.  This research will apply a similar methodology to robots. Robot navigation is a difficult problem for two fundamental reasons:  (1) Using odometric information to estimate position incurs a cumulative error.  In other words, the further a robot travels, the more unsure it becomes of its position.  (2) Places that have the same appearance cannot be distinguished.  Interestingly, most existing methods can address one of the above difficulties, but seldom both. This research program will utilize visual homing to allow a robot to travel between places where it had previously captured snapshot images.  We will begin with an existing model for navigation based on homing, and incorporate additional insights so as to resolve the problems described above.  The desired end product of this research will be a set of methods which allow a robot to travel robustly between known places.  The challenge is to make these methods truly robust so that available visual cues are utilized while noise is ignored. The applications for robustly navigating robots are both numerous and diverse.  Some example applications are autonomous driving, planetary exploration, search and rescue, surveillance, remote sensing, and household cleaning.