Qualitative vision for the guidance of legged robots in unstructured environments

Visual procedures especially tailored to the constraints and requirements of a legged robot are presented. They work for an uncalibrated camera, with pan and zoom, freely moving towards a stationary target in an unstructured environment that may contain independently moving objects. The goal is to dynamically analyse the image sequence in order to extract information about the robot motion, the target position and the environment structure. The development is based on the deformations of an active contour fitted to the target. Experimental results confirm that the proposed approach constitutes a promising alternative to the prevailing trend based on the costly computation of displacement or velocity fields.This work was supported by the project 'Navegación basada en visión de robots autónomos en entornos no estructurados.' (070-724).Peer Reviewe

Laboratorio escénico de técnicas performativas

Actividades realizadas en el desarrollo del Proyecto de Innovación docente Laboratorio De Técnicas Performativas realizado en el curso 2019-2

Effectiveness of an intervention for improving drug prescription in primary care patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy:Study protocol of a cluster randomized clinical trial (Multi-PAP project)

This study was funded by the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias ISCIII (Grant Numbers PI15/00276, PI15/00572, PI15/00996), REDISSEC (Project Numbers RD12/0001/0012, RD16/0001/0005), and the European Regional Development Fund ("A way to build Europe").Background: Multimorbidity is associated with negative effects both on people's health and on healthcare systems. A key problem linked to multimorbidity is polypharmacy, which in turn is associated with increased risk of partly preventable adverse effects, including mortality. The Ariadne principles describe a model of care based on a thorough assessment of diseases, treatments (and potential interactions), clinical status, context and preferences of patients with multimorbidity, with the aim of prioritizing and sharing realistic treatment goals that guide an individualized management. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention that implements the Ariadne principles in a population of young-old patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. The intervention seeks to improve the appropriateness of prescribing in primary care (PC), as measured by the medication appropriateness index (MAI) score at 6 and 12months, as compared with usual care. Methods/Design: Design:pragmatic cluster randomized clinical trial. Unit of randomization: family physician (FP). Unit of analysis: patient. Scope: PC health centres in three autonomous communities: Aragon, Madrid, and Andalusia (Spain). Population: patients aged 65-74years with multimorbidity (≥3 chronic diseases) and polypharmacy (≥5 drugs prescribed in ≥3months). Sample size: n=400 (200 per study arm). Intervention: complex intervention based on the implementation of the Ariadne principles with two components: (1) FP training and (2) FP-patient interview. Outcomes: MAI score, health services use, quality of life (Euroqol 5D-5L), pharmacotherapy and adherence to treatment (Morisky-Green, Haynes-Sackett), and clinical and socio-demographic variables. Statistical analysis: primary outcome is the difference in MAI score between T0 and T1 and corresponding 95% confidence interval. Adjustment for confounding factors will be performed by multilevel analysis. All analyses will be carried out in accordance with the intention-to-treat principle. Discussion: It is essential to provide evidence concerning interventions on PC patients with polypharmacy and multimorbidity, conducted in the context of routine clinical practice, and involving young-old patients with significant potential for preventing negative health outcomes. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02866799Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Depth map from the combination of matched points with active contours

IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IVS), 2000, Dearborn (EE.UU.)This paper describes the analysis of an active contour fitted to a target in a sequence of images recorded by a freely moving uncalibrated camera. The motivating application is the visual guidance of a robot towards a target. Contour deformations are analysed to extract the scaled depth of the target, and to explore the feasibility of 3D egomotion recovery. The scaled depth is used to compute the time to contact, which provides a measure of distance to the target, and also to improve the common depth maps obtained from point matches, which are a valuable input for the robot to avoid obstacles.This work was supported by the project 'Navegación basada en visión de robots autónomos en entornos no estructurados.' (070-724).Peer Reviewe

Contour-based 3d motion recovery while zooming

This paper considers the problem of 3D motion recovery from a sequence of monocular images while zooming. Unlike the common trend based on point matches, the proposed method relies on the deformation of an active contour fitted to a reference object. We derive the relation between the contour deformation and the 3D motion components, assuming time-varying focal length and principal point. This relation allows us to present a method to extract the rotation matrix and the scaled translation along the optical axis.This work was supported by the project 'Navegación autónoma de robots guiados por objetivos visuales' (070-720).Peer Reviewe

Fusing visual contour tracking with inertial sensing to recover robot egomotion

Workshop on Integration of Vision and Inertial Sensors (INERVIS), 2003, Coimbra (Portugal)A method for estimating mobile robot egomotion is presented, which relies on tracking contours in real-time images acquired with an uncalibrated monocular video system. After fitting an active contour to an object in the image, 3D motion is derived from the affine deformations suffered by the contour in an image sequence. More than one object can be tracked at the same time yielding some different pose estimations. Then, improvements in pose determination are achieved by fusing all these different estimations. Inertial information is used to obtain better estimates, as it introduces in the tracking algorithm a measure of the real velocity. Inertial information is also used to eliminate some ambiguities arising from the use of a monocular image sequence. As the algorithms developed are intended to be used in real-time control systems, considerations on computation costs are taken into account.This work was supported by the project 'Navegación autónoma de robots guiados por objetivos visuales' (070-720).Peer Reviewe

Fusing visual and inertial sensing to recover robot egomotion

A method for estimating mobile robot egomotion is presented, which relies on tracking contours in real-time images acquired with a calibrated monocular video system. After fitting an active contour to an object in the image, 3D motion is derived from the affine deformations suffered by the contour in an image sequence. More than one object can be tracked at the same time yielding some different pose estimations. Then, improvements in pose determination are achieved by fusing al l these different estimations. Inertial information is used to obtain better estimates, as it introduces in the tracking algorithm a measure of the real velocity. Inertial information is also used to eliminate some ambiguities arising from the use of a monocular image sequence. As the algorithms developed are intended to be used in real-time control systems, considerations on computation costs are taken into account.This work was supported by the project 'Sistema reconfigurable para la navegación basada en visión de robots caminantes y rodantes en entornos naturales.' (00).Peer Reviewe

Estimació del moviment d'un robot observant contorns actius

Jornada de Recerca en Automàtica, Visió i Robòtica (AVR), 2004, Barcelona (España)Es presenta un mètode per estimar el moviment d’un robot a partir del seguiment de contorns actius en una successió d’imatges adquirides amb un sistema monocular i calibrat, muntat sobre el propi robot. Un cop el contorn actiu ha estat ajustat al voltant de la projecció d’un objecte al pla de la imatge, les deformacions afins que pateix el contorn en la seqüència es parametritzen utilitzant un vector de forma de dimensió constant. S’analitzen les implicacions d’utilitzar vectors de forma de dimensió 3, 4 i 6. A partir d’aquests vectors de forma es pot trobar la rotació i translació 3D que ha provocat les deformacions, es a dir, el moviment propi de la càmera. Els resultats preliminars obtinguts amb un robot rodant sobre un terra pla i vectors de forma de 4 components són forca encoratjadors.This work was supported by the project 'Sistema reconfigurable para la navegación basada en visión de robots caminantes y rodantes en entornos naturales.' (00).Peer Reviewe

3D motion recovery while zooming using active contours

International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS), 2002, Marina del Rey (EE.UU.)This paper considers the problem of 3D motion recovery from a sequence of monocular images while zooming. Unlike the common trend based on point matches, the proposed method relies on the deformation of an active contour fitted to a reference object. We derive the relation between the contour deformation and the 3D motion components, assuming time-varying focal length and principal point. This relation allows us to present a method to extract the rotation matrix and the scaled translation along the optical axis.This work was supported by the project 'Navegación autónoma de robots guiados por objetivos visuales' (070-720).Peer Reviewe