RGB-D datasets using microsoft kinect or similar sensors: a survey

RGB-D data has turned out to be a very useful representation of an indoor scene for solving fundamental computer vision problems. It takes the advantages of the color image that provides appearance information of an object and also the depth image that is immune to the variations in color, illumination, rotation angle and scale. With the invention of the low-cost Microsoft Kinect sensor, which was initially used for gaming and later became a popular device for computer vision, high quality RGB-D data can be acquired easily. In recent years, more and more RGB-D image/video datasets dedicated to various applications have become available, which are of great importance to benchmark the state-of-the-art. In this paper, we systematically survey popular RGB-D datasets for different applications including object recognition, scene classification, hand gesture recognition, 3D-simultaneous localization and mapping, and pose estimation. We provide the insights into the characteristics of each important dataset, and compare the popularity and the difficulty of those datasets. Overall, the main goal of this survey is to give a comprehensive description about the available RGB-D datasets and thus to guide researchers in the selection of suitable datasets for evaluating their algorithms

Computer Vision Applications for Autonomous Aerial Vehicles

Undoubtedly, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have experienced a great leap forward over the last decade. It is not surprising anymore to see a UAV being used to accomplish a certain task, which was previously carried out by humans or a former technology. The proliferation of special vision sensors, such as depth cameras, lidar sensors and thermal cameras, and major breakthroughs in computer vision and machine learning fields accelerated the advance of UAV research and technology. However, due to certain unique challenges imposed by UAVs, such as limited payload capacity, unreliable communication link with the ground stations and data safety, UAVs are compelled to perform many tasks on their onboard embedded processing units, which makes it difficult to readily implement the most advanced algorithms on UAVs. This thesis focuses on computer vision and machine learning applications for UAVs equipped with onboard embedded platforms, and presents algorithms that utilize data from multiple modalities. The presented work covers a broad spectrum of algorithms and applications for UAVs, such as indoor UAV perception, 3D understanding with deep learning, UAV localization, and structural inspection with UAVs. Visual guidance and scene understanding without relying on pre-installed tags or markers is the desired approach for fully autonomous navigation of UAVs in conjunction with the global positioning systems (GPS), or especially when GPS information is either unavailable or unreliable. Thus, semantic and geometric understanding of the surroundings become vital to utilize vision as guidance in the autonomous navigation pipelines. In this context, first, robust altitude measurement, safe landing zone detection and doorway detection methods are presented for autonomous UAVs operating indoors. These approaches are implemented on Google Project Tango platform, which is an embedded platform equipped with various sensors including a depth camera. Next, a modified capsule network for 3D object classification is presented with weight optimization so that the network can be fit and run on memory-constrained platforms. Then, a semantic segmentation method for 3D point clouds is developed for a more general visual perception on a UAV equipped with a 3D vision sensor. Next, this thesis presents algorithms for structural health monitoring applications involving UAVs. First, a 3D point cloud-based, drift-free and lightweight localization method is presented for depth camera-equipped UAVs that perform bridge inspection, where GPS signal is unreliable. Next, a thermal leakage detection algorithm is presented for detecting thermal anomalies on building envelopes using aerial thermography from UAVs. Then, building on our thermal anomaly identification expertise gained on the previous task, a novel performance anomaly identification metric (AIM) is presented for more reliable performance evaluation of thermal anomaly identification methods

Communication Free Robot Swarming

As the military use of unmanned aerial vehicles increases, a growing need for novel strategies to control these systems exists. One such method for controlling many unmanned aerial vehicles simultaneously is the through the use of swarm algorithms. This research explores a swarm robotic algorithm developed by Kadrovach implemented on Pioneer Robots in a real-world environment. An adaptation of his visual sensor is implemented using stereo vision as the primary method of sensing the environment. The swarm members are prohibited from explicitly communicating other than passively through the environment. The resulting implementation produces a communication free swarming algorithm. The algorithm is tested for performance of the visual sensor, performance of the algorithm against stationary targets, and finally, performance against dynamic targets. The results show expected behavior of the swarm model as implemented on the Pioneer robots providing a foundation for future research in swarm algorithms

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Structured Light-Based 3D Reconstruction System for Plants.

Camera-based 3D reconstruction of physical objects is one of the most popular computer vision trends in recent years. Many systems have been built to model different real-world subjects, but there is lack of a completely robust system for plants. This paper presents a full 3D reconstruction system that incorporates both hardware structures (including the proposed structured light system to enhance textures on object surfaces) and software algorithms (including the proposed 3D point cloud registration and plant feature measurement). This paper demonstrates the ability to produce 3D models of whole plants created from multiple pairs of stereo images taken at different viewing angles, without the need to destructively cut away any parts of a plant. The ability to accurately predict phenotyping features, such as the number of leaves, plant height, leaf size and internode distances, is also demonstrated. Experimental results show that, for plants having a range of leaf sizes and a distance between leaves appropriate for the hardware design, the algorithms successfully predict phenotyping features in the target crops, with a recall of 0.97 and a precision of 0.89 for leaf detection and less than a 13-mm error for plant size, leaf size and internode distance