2,386 research outputs found
A Survey on Deep Learning-based Architectures for Semantic Segmentation on 2D images
Semantic segmentation is the pixel-wise labelling of an image. Since the
problem is defined at the pixel level, determining image class labels only is
not acceptable, but localising them at the original image pixel resolution is
necessary. Boosted by the extraordinary ability of convolutional neural
networks (CNN) in creating semantic, high level and hierarchical image
features; excessive numbers of deep learning-based 2D semantic segmentation
approaches have been proposed within the last decade. In this survey, we mainly
focus on the recent scientific developments in semantic segmentation,
specifically on deep learning-based methods using 2D images. We started with an
analysis of the public image sets and leaderboards for 2D semantic
segmantation, with an overview of the techniques employed in performance
evaluation. In examining the evolution of the field, we chronologically
categorised the approaches into three main periods, namely pre-and early deep
learning era, the fully convolutional era, and the post-FCN era. We technically
analysed the solutions put forward in terms of solving the fundamental problems
of the field, such as fine-grained localisation and scale invariance. Before
drawing our conclusions, we present a table of methods from all mentioned eras,
with a brief summary of each approach that explains their contribution to the
field. We conclude the survey by discussing the current challenges of the field
and to what extent they have been solved.Comment: Updated with new studie
Active Object Classification from 3D Range Data with Mobile Robots
This thesis addresses the problem of how to improve the acquisition of 3D range data with a mobile robot for the task of object classification. Establishing the identities of objects in unknown environments is fundamental for robotic systems and helps enable many abilities such as grasping, manipulation, or semantic mapping. Objects are recognised by data obtained from sensor observations, however, data is highly dependent on viewpoint; the variation in position and orientation of the sensor relative to an object can result in large variation in the perception quality. Additionally, cluttered environments present a further challenge because key data may be missing. These issues are not always solved by traditional passive systems where data are collected from a fixed navigation process then fed into a perception pipeline. This thesis considers an active approach to data collection by deciding where is most appropriate to make observations for the perception task. The core contributions of this thesis are a non-myopic planning strategy to collect data efficiently under resource constraints, and supporting viewpoint prediction and evaluation methods for object classification. Our approach to planning uses Monte Carlo methods coupled with a classifier based on non-parametric Bayesian regression. We present a novel anytime and non-myopic planning algorithm, Monte Carlo active perception, that extends Monte Carlo tree search to partially observable environments and the active perception problem. This is combined with a particle-based estimation process and a learned observation likelihood model that uses Gaussian process regression. To support planning, we present 3D point cloud prediction algorithms and utility functions that measure the quality of viewpoints by their discriminatory ability and effectiveness under occlusion. The utility of viewpoints is quantified by information-theoretic metrics, such as mutual information, and an alternative utility function that exploits learned data is developed for special cases. The algorithms in this thesis are demonstrated in a variety of scenarios. We extensively test our online planning and classification methods in simulation as well as with indoor and outdoor datasets. Furthermore, we perform hardware experiments with different mobile platforms equipped with different types of sensors. Most significantly, our hardware experiments with an outdoor robot are to our knowledge the first demonstrations of online active perception in a real outdoor environment. Active perception has broad significance in many applications. This thesis emphasises the advantages of an active approach to object classification and presents its assimilation with a wide range of robotic systems, sensors, and perception algorithms. By demonstration of performance enhancements and diversity, our hope is that the concept of considering perception and planning in an integrated manner will be of benefit in improving current systems that rely on passive data collection
Advances towards behaviour-based indoor robotic exploration
215 p.The main contributions of this research work remain in object recognition by computer vision, by one side, and in robot localisation and mapping by the other. The first contribution area of the research address object recognition in mobile robots. In this area, door handle recognition is of great importance, as it help the robot to identify doors in places where the camera is not able to view the whole door. In this research, a new two step algorithm is presented based on feature extraction that aimed at improving the extracted features to reduce the superfluous keypoints to be compared at the same time that it increased its efficiency by improving accuracy and reducing the computational time. Opposite to segmentation based paradigms, the feature extraction based two-step method can easily be generalized to other types of handles or even more, to other type of objects such as road signals. Experiments have shown very good accuracy when tested in real environments with different kind of door handles. With respect to the second contribution, a new technique to construct a topological map during the exploration phase a robot would perform on an unseen office-like environment is presented. Firstly a preliminary approach proposed to merge the Markovian localisation in a distributed system, which requires low storage and computational resources and is adequate to be applied in dynamic environments. In the same area, a second contribution to terrain inspection level behaviour based navigation concerned to the development of an automatic mapping method for acquiring the procedural topological map. The new approach is based on a typicality test called INCA to perform the so called loop-closing action. The method was integrated in a behaviour-based control architecture and tested in both, simulated and real robot/environment system. The developed system proved to be useful also for localisation purpose
On Robust Face Recognition via Sparse Encoding: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
In the field of face recognition, Sparse Representation (SR) has received
considerable attention during the past few years. Most of the relevant
literature focuses on holistic descriptors in closed-set identification
applications. The underlying assumption in SR-based methods is that each class
in the gallery has sufficient samples and the query lies on the subspace
spanned by the gallery of the same class. Unfortunately, such assumption is
easily violated in the more challenging face verification scenario, where an
algorithm is required to determine if two faces (where one or both have not
been seen before) belong to the same person. In this paper, we first discuss
why previous attempts with SR might not be applicable to verification problems.
We then propose an alternative approach to face verification via SR.
Specifically, we propose to use explicit SR encoding on local image patches
rather than the entire face. The obtained sparse signals are pooled via
averaging to form multiple region descriptors, which are then concatenated to
form an overall face descriptor. Due to the deliberate loss spatial relations
within each region (caused by averaging), the resulting descriptor is robust to
misalignment & various image deformations. Within the proposed framework, we
evaluate several SR encoding techniques: l1-minimisation, Sparse Autoencoder
Neural Network (SANN), and an implicit probabilistic technique based on
Gaussian Mixture Models. Thorough experiments on AR, FERET, exYaleB, BANCA and
ChokePoint datasets show that the proposed local SR approach obtains
considerably better and more robust performance than several previous
state-of-the-art holistic SR methods, in both verification and closed-set
identification problems. The experiments also show that l1-minimisation based
encoding has a considerably higher computational than the other techniques, but
leads to higher recognition rates
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