3D Object Recognition Based on ADAPTIVE-SCALE and SPCA-ALM in Cluttered Scenes

In this paper a novel 3D object recognition method which can improve the recognition accuracy of object recognition in the cluttered scenes was proposed. The proposed method use the adaptive-scale to detect the keypoint (ASDK) of 3D object in the cluttered scenes, it use the algorithm of Sparse Principal Component Analysis Augmented Lagrangian Method (SPCA-ALM) to extract the feature of object, the algorithm of SPCA-ALM has a good performance in the high dimensional due to the Spares PCA, and the ALM can raise the speed of the SPCA. The experiment shows that the proposed method can decrease the time of 3D object recognition and improve the recognition accuracy

A Comparison of Geometric and Energy-Based Point Cloud Semantic Segmentation Methods

International audienceThe recent availability of inexpensive RGB-D cameras, such as the Microsoft Kinect, has raised interest in the robotics community for point cloud segmentation. We are interested in the semantic segmentation task in which the goal is to find some relevant classes for navigation, wall, ground, objects, etc. Several effective solutions have been proposed, mainly based on the recursive decomposition of the point cloud into planes. We compare such a solution to a non-associative MRF method inspired by some recent work in computer vision. The MRF yields interesting results that are however less good than those of a carefully tuned geometric method. Nevertheless, MRF still has some advantages and we suggest some improvements

Autonomous Robot Navigation with Rich Information Mapping in Nuclear Storage Environments

This paper presents our approach to develop a method for an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) to perform inspection tasks in nuclear environments using rich information maps. To reduce inspectors' exposure to elevated radiation levels, an autonomous navigation framework for the UGV has been developed to perform routine inspections such as counting containers, recording their ID tags and performing gamma measurements on some of them. In order to achieve autonomy, a rich information map is generated which includes not only the 2D global cost map consisting of obstacle locations for path planning, but also the location and orientation information for the objects of interest from the inspector's perspective. The UGV's autonomy framework utilizes this information to prioritize locations to navigate to perform the inspections. In this paper, we present our method of generating this rich information map, originally developed to meet the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Robotics Challenge. We demonstrate the performance of our method in a simulated testbed environment containing uranium hexafluoride (UF6) storage container mock ups

Neural network based 2D/3D fusion for robotic object recognition

International audienceWe present a neural network based fusion approach for real- time robotic object recognition which integrates 2D and 3D descriptors in a flexible way. The presented recognition architecture is coupled to a real-time segmentation step based on 3D data, since a focus of our investigations is real-world operation on a mobile robot. As recognition must operate on imperfect segmentation results, we conduct tests of recognition performance using complex everyday objects in order to quantify the overall gain of performing 2D/3D fusion, and to discover where it is particularly useful. We find that the fusion approach is most powerful when generalization is required, for example to significant viewpoint changes and a large number of object categories, and that a perfect segmentation is apparently not a necessary prerequisite for successful discrimination

DECENTRALIZED MULTI-ROBOT PLANNING TO EXPLORE AND PERCEIVE

In a recent French robotic contest, the objective was to develop a multi-robot system able to autonomously map and explore an unknown area while also detecting and localizing objects. As a participant in this challenge, we proposed a new decentralized Markov decision process (Dec-MDP) resolution based on distributed value functions (DVF) to compute multi-robot exploration strategies. The idea is to take advantage of sparse interactions by allowing each robot to calculate locally a strategy that maximizes the explored space while minimizing robots interactions. In this paper, we propose an adaptation of this method to improve also object recognition by integrating into the DVF the interest in covering explored areas with photos. The robots will then act to maximize the explored space and the photo coverage, ensuring better perception and object recognition

Unsupervised and online non-stationary obstacle discovery and modeling using a laser range finder

International audienceUsing laser range finders has shown its efficiency to perform mapping and navigation for mobile robots. However, most of existing methods assume a mostly static world and filter away dynamic aspects while those dynamic aspects are often caused by non-stationary objects which may be important for the robot task. We propose an approach that makes it possible to detect, learn and recognize these objects through a multi-view model, using only a planar laser range finder. We show using a supervised approach that despite the limited information provided by the sensor, it is possible to recognize efficiently up to 22 different object, with a low computing cost while taking advantage of the large field of view of the sensor. We also propose an online, incremental and unsupervised approach that make it possible to continuously discover and learn all kind of dynamic elements encountered by the robot including people and objects

Neural Network Fusion of Color, Depth and Location for Object Instance Recognition on a Mobile Robot

International audienceThe development of mobile robots for domestic assistance re-quires solving problems integrating ideas from different fields of research like computer vision, robotic manipulation, localization and mapping. Semantic mapping, that is, the enrichment a map with high-level infor-mation like room and object identities, is an example of such a complex robotic task. Solving this task requires taking into account hard software and hardware constraints brought by the context of autonomous mobile robots, where short processing times and low energy consumption are mandatory. We present a light-weight scene segmentation and object in-stance recognition algorithm using an RGB-D camera and demonstrate it in a semantic mapping experiment. Our method uses a feed-forward neural network to fuse texture, color and depth information. Running at 3 Hz on a single laptop computer, our algorithm achieves a recognition rate of 97% in a controlled environment, and 87% in the adversarial con-ditions of a real robotic task. Our results demonstrate that state of the art recognition rates on a database does not guarantee performance in a real world experiment. We also show the benefit in these conditions of fusing several recognition decisions and data from different sources. The database we compiled for the purpose of this study is publicly available

RGBD object recognition and visual texture classification for indoor semantic mapping

International audienceWe present a mobile robot whose goal is to autonomously explore an unknown indoor environment and to build a semantic map containing high-level information similar to those extracted by humans. This information includes the rooms, their connectivity, the objects they contain and the material of the walls and ground. This robot was developed in order to participate in a French exploration and mapping contest called CAROTTE whose goal is to produce easily interpretable maps of an unknown environment. In particular we present our object detection approach based on a color+depth camera that fuse 3D, color and texture information through a neural network for robust object recognition. We also present the material recognition approach based on machine learning applied to vision. We demonstrate the performances of these modules on image databases and provide examples on the full system working in real environments