Object detection and recognition with event driven cameras

This thesis presents study, analysis and implementation of algorithms to perform object detection and recognition using an event-based cam era. This sensor represents a novel paradigm which opens a wide range of possibilities for future developments of computer vision. In partic ular it allows to produce a fast, compressed, illumination invariant output, which can be exploited for robotic tasks, where fast dynamics and signi\ufb01cant illumination changes are frequent. The experiments are carried out on the neuromorphic version of the iCub humanoid platform. The robot is equipped with a novel dual camera setup mounted directly in the robot\u2019s eyes, used to generate data with a moving camera. The motion causes the presence of background clut ter in the event stream. In such scenario the detection problem has been addressed with an at tention mechanism, speci\ufb01cally designed to respond to the presence of objects, while discarding clutter. The proposed implementation takes advantage of the nature of the data to simplify the original proto object saliency model which inspired this work. Successively, the recognition task was \ufb01rst tackled with a feasibility study to demonstrate that the event stream carries su\ufb03cient informa tion to classify objects and then with the implementation of a spiking neural network. The feasibility study provides the proof-of-concept that events are informative enough in the context of object classi\ufb01 cation, whereas the spiking implementation improves the results by employing an architecture speci\ufb01cally designed to process event data. The spiking network was trained with a three-factor local learning rule which overcomes weight transport, update locking and non-locality problem. The presented results prove that both detection and classi\ufb01cation can be carried-out in the target application using the event data

The Idea of the Houses:House layout and social change in Middle to Late Helladic Peloponnese

Within mainland Greek societies, the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age is characterised as having seen considerable social, political, economic and cultural transformations leading to the emergence of palaces. Yet, being the locus of elites, palaces are unlikely to inform us on the way these changes affected the full spectrum of Mainland societies. To achieve this, we turn here to non-palatial dwellings that are increasingly considered a fruitful domain of investigation for exploring broad societal change. In this paper we analyse a sample of 149 domestic buildings, to assess whether social change happening in the Peloponnese at the transition between MH and LH influenced the layout of houses. The investigation reveals macro-trends related to the gradual disappearance of apsidal buildings and the growth of complexity in domestic buildings. This latter aspect seems to be geographically inflected and potentially connected to the unfolding of the trajectory of the Mycenaean palaces

Path following and obstacle avoidance for an autonomous UAV using a depth camera

The main focus of this work is the development of a software architecture to autonomously navigate a flying vehicle in an indoor environment in presence of obstacles. The hardware platform used to test the developed algorithms is the AscTec Firefly equipped with a RGB-D camera (Microsoft Kinect): the sensor output is used to incrementally build a map of the environment and generate a collision-free path. Specifically, we introduce a novel approach to analytically compute the path in an efficient and effective manner. An initial path, given by the intersection of two 3D surfaces, is shaped around the obstacles by adding to either of the two surfaces a radial function at every obstacle location. The intersection between the deformed surfaces is guaranteed not to intersect obstacles, hence it is a safe path for the robot to follow. The entire computation runs on-board and the path is computed in real-time. In this article we present the developed algorithms, the software architecture as well as the results of our experiments, showing that the method can adapt in real time the robot's path in order to avoid several types of obstacles, while producing a map of the surroundings

A model for a conscious digital citizenship

This article, in the form of an essay, proposes a new model of digital citizenship starting from ethical-social assumptions and bases, an alternative point of view through which the development of digital skills and new technologies is supported by anthropological and cultural paradigms. This becomes the only possible context where to develop a sustainable, shared and egalitarian digital citizenship, epitome of the transformation of today’s society, which is increasingly connected to the world of technological innovations. The synergy of different activities, in fields and contexts not always linked to each other, develop a fertile network on which to enhance the attitude to a positive and critical use of digital tools. The proposed model aims to establish six key points, six focuses: governance, prevention, network and social ethics, education and research, all operating within a conscious sharing of real ethical-social rules, recognized as a primary source by society. The represented sectors of intervention move simultaneously, in a circular, dynamic, centripetal convergence; only the joint effort of all areas of intervention will be able to achieve a real digital citizenship permeated by a conscious and active ethical awareness. The discussion also focuses on training and on the disparities relating to accessibility and use in the technological field, detecting the inequalities still deeply rooted in the territory and identifying Universal Design for Learning as a possible inclusive model

the event driven software library for yarp with algorithms and icub applications

Event-driven (ED) cameras are an emerging technology that sample the visual signal based on changes in the signal magnitude, rather than at a fixed-rate over time. The change in paradigm results in a camera with a lower latency, that uses less power, has reduced bandwidth, and higher dynamic range. Such cameras offer many potential advantages for on-line, autonomous, robots; however the sensor data does not directly integrate with current "image-based" frameworks and software libraries. The iCub robot uses Yet Another Robot Platform (YARP) as middleware to provide modular processing and connectivity to sensors and actuators. This paper introduces a library that incorporates an event-based framework into the YARP architecture, allowing event cameras to be used with the iCub (and other YARP-based) robots. We describe the philosophy and methods for structuring events to facilitate processing, while maintaining low-latency and real-time operation. We also describe several processing modules made available open-source, and three example demonstrations that can be run on the neuromorphic iCub

The Idea of the House: House layout and social change in the Middle to Late Helladic Peloponnese

It has long been held that at the transition between the Middle and Late Helladic, considerable social, political, economic and cultural changes occurred within mainland Greek societies (Dickinson 1977; Voutsaki – Wiersma 2017), changes ultimately leading to the formation of early Mycenaean polities and later palatial states (Voutsaki 2010, 99). Houses are increasingly being considered a fruitful domain of enquiry in order to explore such changes, as they can directly express the values, images, perceptions and ways of life of a human group (Rapoport 1969, 12; Wiersma 2017, 91). The present paper investigates whether social change happening in the Peloponnese at the transition between MH and LH affected the formal and functional solutions adopted in the domestic architecture. To that end, we will analyse a sample of 149 domestic buildings, seeking to identify main trends visible through time and whether these are geographically inflected and/or connected to the unfolding of the trajectory of the Mycenaean palaces