Vision-Based Path Finding Strategy of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Electrical Infrastructure Purpose

In this chapter we present the development of automated visual inspection systems for electrical infrastructure. The inspection is performed using images acquired with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Through automated inspection routes, the state of the infrastructure can be evaluated and then the appropriate correcting measures be taken. The monitoring of power lines can be done using passive sensors such as cameras or active sensors such as light detection and ranging (LIDAR) cameras, image processing techniques, computer vision and control systems can then be used. Additionally, a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction process is possible using images either offline or during the monitoring. An UAV with an onboard embedded computer is used to execute the computer vision and path planning algorithms. The work done shows that the proposed strategy aids in the automation of power line inspection

Extraction of Key-Frames from an Unstable Video Feed

The APOLI project deals with Automated Power Line Inspection using Highly-automated Unmanned Aerial Systems. Beside the Real-time damage assessment by on-board high-resolution image data exploitation a postprocessing of the video data is necessary. This Master Thesis deals with the implementation of an Isolator Detector Framework and a Work ow in the Automotive Data and Time-triggered Framework(ADTF) that loads a video direct from a camera or from a storage and extracts the Key Frames which contain objects of interest. This is done by the implementation of an object detection system using C++ and the creation of ADTF Filters that perform the task of detection of the objects of interest and extract the Key Frames using a supervised learning platform. The use case is the extraction of frames from video samples that contain Images of Isolators from Power Transmission Lines

Indexing, browsing and searching of digital video

Video is a communications medium that normally brings together moving pictures with a synchronised audio track into a discrete piece or pieces of information. The size of a “piece ” of video can variously be referred to as a frame, a shot, a scene, a clip, a programme or an episode, and these are distinguished by their lengths and by their composition. We shall return to the definition of each of these in section 4 this chapter. In modern society, video is ver

UAV vision system: Application in electric line following and 3D reconstruction of associated terrain

Abstract. In this work, a set of vision techniques applied to a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) images is presented. The techniques are used to detect electrical lines and towers which are used in vision based navigation and for 3D associated terrain reconstruction. The developed work aims to be a previous stage for autonomous electrical infrastructure inspection. This work is divided in four stages: power line detection, transmission tower detection, UAV navigation and 3D reconstruction of associated terrain. In the first stage, a study of algorithms for line detection was performed. After that, an algorithm for line detection called CBS (Circle Based Search) which presented good results with azimuthal images was developed. This method offers a shorter response time in comparison with the Hough transform and the LSD (Line Segment Detector) algorithm, and a similar response to EDLines which is one of the fastest and most trustful algorithms for line detection. Given that most of the works related with line detection are focused in straight lines, an algorithm for catenary detection based on a concatenation process was developed. This algorithm was validated using real power line inspection images with catenaries. Additionally, in this work a tower detection method based on a feature descriptor with the capacity of detecting towers in times close to 100 ms was developed. Navigation over power lines by using UAVs requires a lot of tests because of the risk of failures and accidents. For this reason, a virtual environment for real time UAV simulation of visual navigation was developed by using ROS (Robot Operative System), which is open source. An onboard visual navigation system for UAV was also developed. This system allows the UAV to navigate following a power line in real sceneries by using the developed techniques. In the last part a 3D tower reconstruction that uses images obtained with UAVs is presented.}, keywordenglish = {line detection, inspection, navigation, tower detection, onboard vision system, UAV.Este trabajo presenta un conjunto de técnicas de visión aplicadas a imágenes adquiridas mediante UAVs (vehículos aéreos no tripulados). Las técnicas se usan para la detección de líneas y torres eléctricas las cuales son usadas en un proceso de navegación basada en vision y para la reconstrucción de terreno asociado en 3D. El proyecto está planteado como una fase previa a un proceso de inspección de infraestructura electrica. El trabajo se encuentra dividido en cuatro partes: la detección de líneas de transmisión eléctrica, la detección de torres de transmisión, la navegación de UAVs y la reconstrucción tridimensional de objetos tales como torres de transmisión. En primer lugar se realizó un estudio de los algoritmos para la detección de líneas en imágenes. Posteriormente se desarrolló un algoritmo para la detección de líneas llamado CBS (Búsqueda basada en círculos), el cual tiene buenos resultados en imágenes azimutales de líneas eléctricas. Este método ofrece un tiempo de respuesta más corto que la transformada de Houg o el algoritmo LSD (line segment detector), y un tiempo similar a EDLines el cual es uno de los algoritmos más rápidos y confiables para detectar líneas. Debido a que la mayoría de trabajos relacionados con detección de líneas se enfocan en líneas rectas, se desarrolló un algoritmo para detectar catenarias que cuenta con un proceso de concatenación de segmentos, esta técnica fue validada con imágenes de catenarias obtenidas en inspecciones reales de infraestructura eléctrica. Adicionalmente se desarrolló un algoritmo basado en descriptores de características para la detección de torres de transmisión con la intención de facilitar los procesos de navegación e inspección. El proceso desarrollado ha permitido detectar torres en videos en tiempos cercanos a 100 ms. La navegación sobre líneas eléctricas mediante UAVs requiere una gran cantidad de pruebas debido al riesgo de fallos y accidentes, por esto se realizó un ambiente virtual para la simulación en tiempo real de técnicas de navegación basadas en características visuales haciendo uso del entorno de ROS (Robot Operative System), el cual es de código abierto. Se desarrollo un sistema de navegación a bordo de un UAV el cual permitio obtener resultados de navegación autónoma en el seguimiento de líneas en escenarios reales usando las técnicas desarrolladas. En la parte final del trabajo se realizó una reconstrucción 3D de torres electricas haciendo uso de imagenes adquiridas con UAVs.Doctorad

Discrete Multi-modal Hashing with Canonical Views for Robust Mobile Landmark Search

Mobile landmark search (MLS) recently receives increasing attention for its great practical values. However, it still remains unsolved due to two important challenges. One is high bandwidth consumption of query transmission, and the other is the huge visual variations of query images sent from mobile devices. In this paper, we propose a novel hashing scheme, named as canonical view based discrete multi-modal hashing (CV-DMH), to handle these problems via a novel three-stage learning procedure. First, a submodular function is designed to measure visual representativeness and redundancy of a view set. With it, canonical views, which capture key visual appearances of landmark with limited redundancy, are efficiently discovered with an iterative mining strategy. Second, multi-modal sparse coding is applied to transform visual features from multiple modalities into an intermediate representation. It can robustly and adaptively characterize visual contents of varied landmark images with certain canonical views. Finally, compact binary codes are learned on intermediate representation within a tailored discrete binary embedding model which preserves visual relations of images measured with canonical views and removes the involved noises. In this part, we develop a new augmented Lagrangian multiplier (ALM) based optimization method to directly solve the discrete binary codes. We can not only explicitly deal with the discrete constraint, but also consider the bit-uncorrelated constraint and balance constraint together. Experiments on real world landmark datasets demonstrate the superior performance of CV-DMH over several state-of-the-art methods

WILDFIRE DETECTION SYSTEM BASED ON PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS AND IMAGE PROCESSING OF REMOTE-SENSED VIDEO

Early detection and mitigation of wildfires can reduce devastating property damage, firefighting costs, pollution, and loss of life. This thesis proposes the method of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of images in the temporal domain to identify a smoke plume in wildfires. Temporal PCA is an effective motion detector, and spatial filtering of the output Principal Component images can segment the smoke plume region. The effective use of other image processing techniques to identify smoke plumes and heat plumes are compared. The best attributes of smoke plume detectors and heat plume detectors are evaluated for combination in an improved wildfire detection system. PCA of visible blue images at an image sampling rate of 2 seconds per image effectively exploits a smoke plume signal. PCA of infrared images is the fundamental technique for exploiting a heat plume signal. A system architecture is proposed for the implementation of image processing techniques. The real-world deployment and usability are described for this system

Vision-Based Bridge Deformation Monitoring

This is the final version of the article. Available from Frontiers Media via the DOI in this record.Optics-based tracking of civil structures is not new, due to historical application in surveying, but automated applications capable of tracking at rates that capture dynamic effects are now a hot research topic in structural health monitoring. Recent innovations show promise of true non-contacting monitoring capability avoiding the need for physically attached sensor arrays. The paper reviews recent experience using the Imetrum Dynamic Monitoring Station (DMS) commercial optics-based tracking system on Humber Bridge and Tamar Bridge, aiming to show both the potential and limitations. In particular, the paper focuses on the challenges to field application of such a system resulting from camera instability, nature of the target (artificial or structural feature), and illumination. The paper ends with evaluation of a non-proprietary system using a consumer-grade camera for cable vibration monitoring to emphasize the potential for lower cost systems where if performance specifications can be relaxed.The GPS system at Humber was created by Dr. Ki Koo with support from EPSRC grant EP/F035403/1. DH was supported via the Marie Curie Fellowship programme and as such the research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 330195

Assistive technology design and development for acceptable robotics companions for ageing years

© 2013 Farshid Amirabdollahian et al., licensee Versita Sp. z o. o. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author.A new stream of research and development responds to changes in life expectancy across the world. It includes technologies which enhance well-being of individuals, specifically for older people. The ACCOMPANY project focuses on home companion technologies and issues surrounding technology development for assistive purposes. The project responds to some overlooked aspects of technology design, divided into multiple areas such as empathic and social human-robot interaction, robot learning and memory visualisation, and monitoring persons’ activities at home. To bring these aspects together, a dedicated task is identified to ensure technological integration of these multiple approaches on an existing robotic platform, Care-O-Bot®3 in the context of a smart-home environment utilising a multitude of sensor arrays. Formative and summative evaluation cycles are then used to assess the emerging prototype towards identifying acceptable behaviours and roles for the robot, for example role as a butler or a trainer, while also comparing user requirements to achieved progress. In a novel approach, the project considers ethical concerns and by highlighting principles such as autonomy, independence, enablement, safety and privacy, it embarks on providing a discussion medium where user views on these principles and the existing tension between some of these principles, for example tension between privacy and autonomy over safety, can be captured and considered in design cycles and throughout project developmentsPeer reviewe

Constructing the space of visual attention

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2012.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Page 180 blank. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-171).This thesis explores the nature of a human experience in space through a primary inquiry into vision. This inquiry begins by questioning the existing methods and instruments employed to capture and represent a human experience of space. While existing qualitative and quantitative methods and instruments -- from "subjective" interviews to "objective" photographic documentation -- may lead to insight in the study of a human experience in space, we argue that they are inherently limited with respect to physiological realities. As one moves about the world, one believes to see the world as continuous and fully resolved. However, this is not how human vision is currently understood to function on a physiological level. If we want to understand how humans visually construct a space, then we must examine patterns of visual attention on a physiological level. In order to inquire into patterns of visual attention in three dimensional space, we need to develop new instruments and new methods of representation. The instruments we require, directly address the physiological realities of vision, and the methods of representation seek to situate the human subject within a space of their own construction. In order to achieve this goal we have developed PUPIL, a custom set of hardware and software instruments, that capture the subject's eye movements. Using PUPIL, we have conducted a series of trials from proof of concept -- demonstrating the capabilities of our instruments -- to critical inquiry of the relationship between a human subject and a space. We have developed software to visualize this unique spatial experience, and have posed open questions based on the initial findings of our trials. This thesis aims to contribute to spatial design disciplines, by providing a new way to capture and represent a human experience of space.by Moritz Philipp Kassner [and] William Rhoades Patera.S.M