Surveys the developments of the last 20 years in the area of vision for mobile robot navigation. Two major components of the paper deal with indoor navigation and outdoor navigation. For each component, we have further subdivided our treatment of the subject on the basis of structured and unstructured environments. For indoor robots in structured environments, we have dealt separately with the cases of geometrical and topological models of space. For unstructured environments, we have discussed the cases of navigation using optical flows, using methods from the appearance-based paradigm, and by recognition of specific objects in the environment.

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Vision for mobile robot navigation: a survey

Mobile robot vision-based navigation has been the source of countless research contributions, from the domains of both vision and control. Vision is becoming more and more common in applications such as localization, automatic map construction, autonomous navigation, path following, inspection, monitoring or risky situation detection. This survey presents those pieces of work, from the nineties until nowadays, which constitute a wide progress in visual navigation techniques for land, aerial and autonomous underwater vehicles. The paper deals with two major approaches: map-based navigation and mapless navigation. Map-based navigation has been in turn subdivided in metric map-based navigation and topological map-based navigation. Our outline to mapless navigation includes reactive techniques based on qualitative characteristics extraction, appearance-based localization, optical flow, features tracking, plane ground detection/tracking, etc... The recent concept of visual sonar has also been revised.

Visual Navigation for Mobile Robots: A Survey

A vacuum cleaner includes an electric air blower; a dust separator placed at an upstream side of the electric air blower and having a filtration filter for taking in dust-containing air sucked by the electric air blower and separating the dust from the air; and a dust accommodating section for accommodating the dust separated by the dust separator. The filtration filter includes a plurality of through-holes penetrating from an upstream surface at an upstream side to a downstream surface at the downstream side, and a central axis of the through-hole is inclined with respect to a normal line direction of a surface of the filtration filter.

Electric vacuum cleaner

A vehicular imaging system includes an imaging device that is part of an exterior rearview mirror assembly and having a field of view rearward and/or sideward of the vehicle. A control processes captured image data utilizing edge detection. Responsive at least in part to the processing, the control determines objects of interest present in the field of view of the imaging device. Objects of interest determined to be present in the field of view include (i) a vehicle that is rearward and/or sideward of the vehicle, (ii) a headlight of a vehicle that is rearward and/or sideward of the vehicle, (iii) a bicycle that is rearward and/or sideward of the vehicle, and/or (iv) a bicycle rider that is rearward and/or sideward of the vehicle. Responsive at least in part to the processing of captured image data, a driver of the vehicle is alerted to a hazardous condition.

Imaging system for vehicle

A system for tracking currency bills comprises a currency scanning device. The scanning device includes a sensor that retrieves currency identification characteristic information of each bill processed. The currency identification characteristic information permits the unique identification of each bill processed. The system further comprises a customer identification means and means for associating each processed bill with the customer depositing the bill. Means for identifying the customer (or customer account) associated with a particular processed bill after the deposit transaction has been completed is also included in the system.

Document processing system using full image scanning

A system for and a method of recognizing and tracking a target mark with a video camera is disclosed. The system includes a target mark (10) disposed on an object (1) and composed of a black circle and a white triangle mounted centrally on the black circle and three-dimensionally shifted from the black circle, a video camera (20) for imaging the target mark (10), a robot (30) supporting the video camera (20) and movable in directions with six degrees of freedom, an image processor (40) for processing image data of the target mark which is produced by the video camera (20), a shift calculating unit (50) for detecting a shift of the target mark (10) from projected histogram information of the target mark (10) which is produced by the image processor (40), and a robot controller (60) for controlling movement of the robot depending on the shift to enable the video camera (20) to track the target mark (10). The system is capable of tracking the target mark (20) attached to the object (1) on a real-time basis. Mark recognizing apparatus capable of accurately recognizing target marks of other shapes is also disclosed.

System for and method of recognizating and tracking target mark

A system for and a method of recognizing and tracking a target mark with a video camera is disclosed The system includes a target mark (10) disposed on an object (1) and composed of a black circle and a white triangle mounted centrally on the black circle and three-dimensionally shifted from the black circle, a video camera (20) for imaging the target mark (10), a robot (30) supporting the video camera (20) and movable in directions with six degrees of freedom, an image processor (40) for processing image data of the target mark which is produced by the video camera (20), a shift calculating unit (50) for detecting a shift of the target mark (10) from projected histogram information of the target mark (10) which is produced by the image processor (40), and a robot controller (60) for controlling movement of the robot depending on the shift to enable the video camera (20) to track the target mark (10) The system is capable of tracking the target mark ( 20) attached to the object (1) on a real-time basis Mark recognizing apparatus capable of accurately recognizing target marks of other shapes is also disclosed

System for and method of recognizing and tracking target mark

The present invention relates to an apparatus for carrying out a harness design in a short time while taking a physical characteristic of a harness at the design and development of equipment incorporating the harness. The apparatus comprises a component information preserving unit for preserving three-dimensional model data on a component other than the harness in an apparatus which is an object of design, a harness information setting unit for setting information on the harness as harness information, a characteristic information setting unit, a three-dimensional model constructing unit for constructing a three-dimensional model of each of the harness and the component on the basis of the harness information set in the harness information setting unit, the three-dimensional model data on the component in the component information preserving unit and the characteristic information set in the characteristic information setting unit, and a display control unit.

Harness design supporting apparatus and computer-readable recording medium recording harness design supporting program

This paper discusses a practical system which, when incorporated in an autonomous mobile robot moving indoors, can determine the position of the robot and detect obstacles so that the robot can navigate appropriately. We have developed new real-time, reliable techniques using correlation operations to achieve vision-based localization and obstacle detection. These techniques include a landmark detection technique that assures stable detection even under variable brightness and an obstacle measurement technique that combines obstacle region segmentation with stereo vision. Our experiments have proven that these techniques can make the necessary measurements in 100 ms, assure stable measurement in environments of varying brightness, and are sufficient for mobile robots.

Localization and obstacle detection for robots for carrying food trays

An imaginary store is displayed in response to client's request. Correspondingly to selection of a product object by the client in the imaginary store, a chat channel between the client and a salesperson is set up. Data on characters in the chat that they had are displayed. On the basis of a key word in this chat, attribute objects of the corresponding product, such as the color and shape of the product, are selected and reflected on the product object.

Method for managing an imaginary store, method for using the imaginary store, and recording medium in which an imaginary store managing program is stored

Masayoshi Hashima

Papers

System for and method of recognizating and tracking target mark

System for and method of recognizing and tracking target mark

Harness design supporting apparatus and computer-readable recording medium recording harness design supporting program

Localization and obstacle detection for robots for carrying food trays

Method for managing an imaginary store, method for using the imaginary store, and recording medium in which an imaginary store managing program is stored