Motion Capture System and Mobile Robot Vehicle for Indoor Autonomous Navigation Research

机器人研究的一个中心问题是准确地确定感兴趣实体在物理空间中的位置，例如机器人的位置，视觉地标或机器人操纵的对象。这些信息对于定量评估机器人定位和映射算法或方法的性能、创建基准和地面实况以比较竞争机器人解决方案以及有时感测机器人位置以进行控制至关重要。虽然最初是为了捕捉人类运动而开发的，但运动捕捉已经成为机器人技术中广泛使用的测量工具，以满足上述需求。该提案要求为这样一个系统提供资金，以便阿尔伯塔大学的机器人研究人员能够有效地进行研究。 该提案的PI和Co-PI在计算科学系积极开展自主机器人导航和移动的机器人操作的研究。PI在同时定位和地图绘制或SLAM方面的工作试图建立环境（地图）的准确三维描述，同时在地图内定位机器人。合作PI，教授马丁Jagersand，是感兴趣的对象操作的机器人手臂上的移动的平台，视觉系统必须确定足够准确的对象的位置，其操作。所有这些研究都严重依赖于所要求的运动捕捉系统的可用性，以物理实现机器人导航或控制算法，并量化其性能。所要求的动作捕捉系统代表了一个共享的基础设施，使A大学与世界领先的机器人研究机构相提并论。 最后，地面机器人也被要求取代老化的室内移动的机器人（先锋机器人和NAO机器人）正在使用的机器人研究实验室研究自主机器人导航。

A central issue in robotics research is to determine the position of an entity of interest accurately in the physical space such as the position of a robot, a visual landmark or an object being manipulated by a robot. This information is critical for quantitatively evaluating the performance of a robot localization and mapping algorithm or method, for creating benchmarks and ground truth to compare competing robotics solutions, and sometimes for sensing the robot position for its control. Although originally developed for capturing human movements, motion capture has become a widely used measurement tool in robotics to meet the needs described above. This proposal requests funding for such a system in order to allow robotics researchers at the University of Alberta to conduct their studies effectively. The PI and Co-PI of this proposal actively conduct research in autonomous robot navigation and mobile robot manipulation, in the Department of Computing Science. The PI’s work in simultaneous localization and mapping or SLAM attempts to build an accurate three-dimensional description of the environment (map) while localizing the robot within the map at the same time. The Co-PI, Professor Martin Jagersand, is interested in object manipulation by a robot arm on a mobile platform where a vision system must determine the position of the object sufficiently accurately for its manipulation. All these studies critically depend on the availability of the requested motion capture system, in order to physically implement robot navigation or control algorithms and quantify their performance. The requested motion capture system represents a shared infrastructure that places the U of A on par with leading robotics research institutions in the world. Finally, a ground robot is also requested to replace the aging indoor mobile robots (a Pioneer robot and a NAO robot) being used in the Robotics Research Laboratory to study autonomous robot navigation.