Vision Based Systemsfor UAV Applications

In the article a group of vi libraries (“virtual instrument”) of the simulation – programming LabVIEW environment, enabling the construction of a program that would be the basics of the image programming and analysis system, are presented. Presented libraries are dedicated for the Vivotek, supporting the SDK module (“VitaminCtrl”). They provide the ability to connect the camera that works on the Internet, configuration of the transmission protocol, acquisition parameters and audio and video streaming. In addition, while operating the PTZ (“pan-tilt-zoom”) cameras, suggested module allow to control the camera motion from the client application level which was created in the National Instruments’ firm environment. With the use of the designed libraries, the LabVIEW environments and PTZ cameras of Vivotek a post was made to make algorithm and synthesis of the processing algorithms and for the analysis of digital images. At the stage of the development of the functional modules, a consistent idea of input and output signals definition was also developed. The created modules rely on both the commands of the controlling module SDK and syntax URL format commands. What is more, designed modules enable capturing the video signal frames and their conversation to a LabVIEW variable environment of Image type (“IMAQ Image.ctl”). With the achieved functionality a simple construction of an application for the synthesis and analysis of algorithms for image processing and for the analysis of images acquired in the real time, directly from the camera, is possible.

The aim of this methodology is a creation of a tool which would be able to construct a system for obtaining information about objects in the environment of the vision system. This task is often defined as a sub-task in the primary problem of the automatic task completion by the independent UAV unit using visual information. These researches concerned the construction of the algorithm that would allow the location of objects in the image, identification of these objects by classifying them into appropriate (previously declared) class, and then sending information about the sought-after object / objects to the actuator control module.

Today most popular systems are constructed with the idea of collaboration. In software we can see a drastic increase of cloud-oriented applications, in electronics more devices are designed with CAN and Ethernet communications, and in robotics and defense whole systems are linked as unmanned sensor and agent networks. This paper describes the fundamental design principles of an automatic sentry turret in a distributed multi-agent system. The work is focused on the design of the turret system itself and the system architecture for distributed robotic applications. The papers is divided into the following sections: introduction, turret construction, system architecture, automatic target detection and aiming, and summary. Module.

The solution of the camera head control problem was presented in the paper. The main goal of developed control algorithm is the object tracking in rapid disturbance conditions. The changes of the helicopter position and orientation during the time of disturbance result in losing tracked object from the field of view. Due to this fact the helicopter control system uses not only the visual information. The essence of the proposed solution is to compute the object position only in such time intervals when the object is in the center of the image. It allows the camera head regulators to compensate change of the camera position and set the camera towards the object. The proposed solution comprises of turning the camera head towards the trucked object in horizontal and vertical planes. The appropriate angles were computed on the basis of rangefinder data (distance between the camera and the object) and GPS and IMU data (the camera position and orientation). Furthermore, examples of the situation when the distortion changes the helicopter position in horizontal and vertical plane were presented in the paper.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are very useful platforms for detecting and tracking objects which are located on the ground. The crux of the considered problem is the tracked object which disappears from a field of view. The above mentioned may be caused by rapid camera movements. One of the examples of such a situation is the camera being attached to helicopter. In case of sudden gust of wind a helicopter trajectory can be considerably and rapidly changed. This results in losing tracked object from the picture we get from the camera. The fundamental idea of the solution, which was presented here in, was based on additional data concerning camera orientation and location. Moreover the distance of a tracked object from the camera is also utilized to correct camera movements.

This article presents design and implementation of a gyro-stabilized platform for visible light and infrared image acquisition. The process of selection of appropriate vision sensors and their calibration is presented. Additionally there are presented results of conceptual work, design and construction of the working prototype of the device.

Omnidirectional video acquisition device (OVAD) is an innovative concept that may find many applications both civilian and military. It can be used to observe areas that may need wide area monitoring such as shops, banks, petrol stations. In military installations OVAD may be used to patrol the area from the ground or from the air. Application allows capturing images from chosen camera. It is possible to immediately switch between cameras or also move around the panorama created from multiple video streams, like in rotating camera. Panorama contains combined view of entire area around device.

A vision system for group of small mobile robots playing soccer is presented. The whole process of extracting vision information from input images is discussed in detail. The method for correcting radial distortion introduced to the image by camera’s lens is presented, then simple adaptive background subtraction algorithm is described. Next, classical flood fill algorithm is presented together with novel optimization giving better results and shorter calculation time. Later, novel method for calculating object’s orientation, based on the geometrical moments and special shape of color markers on top of each robot, is presented. Then, the color classifier based on the histogram intersection kernel is discussed. Design of the vision system as a central server providing vision information to many clients simultaneously is presented. Experimental results obtained with use of the algorithm presented are also provided.

Digital remote manual control systems are no less complicated than automatic control. Engineers have to overcome number of unique problems. Mechanical parts have to respond to digital signals transferred through wireless connection. Digital control algorithms have to correctly translate the movement of controls at remote station to signals in a way that a operator has a proper feeling of control. The Master Control System presented connects the features of a Drive-By-Wire control system with wireless connection. Main focus is put on the Master controller and its algorithms of input - output translation, that give finer control for an operator. In addition, computer controlled intervention algorithms are proposed that can increase safety of the subject vehicle. All that is done on basis of a small two-wheeled robot and a closed environment of small playground with radio interface allowing wireless connection with the robot, and a vision interface equipped with a camera serving as a visual feedback. Is it a great environment for theoretical considerations, testing and implementation. Modular design of the environment additionally allows the control of whole Mobile Robot Group, not only one robot subject. Moreover sented results can be applied more widely in controllers for cars or other wheeled or tracked vehicles.

The article presents designed and implemented system for multi-axial mechanical stabilization. The quality of stabilization using closed-loop control, open-loop control and open-loop control with prediction was experimentally measured. Acquired results are presented and discussed.

In this chapter we present simulation results of an algorithm designed to planning collision free path based on probabilistic search. The aim of this study is to design an algorithm for off-line planning a set of way-points which make the collision free route of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The planning process is based on the graph that represents the map containing information about altitude of the terrain over which the UAV is intended to perform its mission. The size of the graph increases polynomially with the resolution of the map and the number of way points of UAV. The probabilistic method of making the representative model of the terrain was applied in order to reduce a complexity of planning the collision free path. The functioning and efficiency of the approach proposed was introduced in our previous work, here we use real terrain map and introduce indicators to illustrate properties of the algorithm.

The paper addresses the problem of information fusion in Multi-Agent System. Since the knowledge of the process state is distributed between agents, the efficiency of the task performance depends on a proper information fusion technique applied to the agents. In this paper we study the case in which each agent has its own sensing device and is able to collect information with some certainty. Since the same information can be detected by multiple agents, the global certainty about the given fact derives from the fusion of information exchanged by interconnecting agents. The key issue in the method proposed, is an assumption that each agent is able to asses its own reliability during the task performance. The method is illustrated by the pick-up-and-collection task example. The effectiveness of the method proposed is evaluated using relevant simulation experiments.

This article concerns prototyping of the control algorithms for unmanned flying objects using the virtual reality. More specifically, there is discussed an integration between simulation environment and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control software. This integration is based on software in the loop simulation. The control software uses PI controllers cascade, which stabilize the aircraft in the simulated air. Used simulator is Prepar3D® from Lockheed Martin corporation. Implemented algorithms that are used to control the UAV in simulation environment can be used to future prototype of vision based algorithms. All implemented algorithms are presented along with the developed software, which we are using to navigate the flying object on real map.

The authors present results of the research on human recognition based on the video gait sequences from the CASIA Gait Database. Both linear (principal component analysis; PCA) and non-linear (isometric features mapping; Isomap and locally linear embedding; LLE) methods were applied in order to reduce data dimensionality, whereas a concept of hidden Markov model (HMM) was used for the purpose of data classification. The results of the conducted experiments formed the main subject of analysis of classification accuracy expressed by means of the Correct Classification Rate (CCR).

This article describes communication system designed and implemented on Silesian University of Technology based on experience acquired in previews projects. Communication system was designed for micro UAVs. First part of this work describes physical layer and second part describes software layer such as data encryption, establishing and maintaining connection. Proposed devices was tested on group of UAVs and acquired results are very promising.

The scope of this article is selection of individual gait features of video recordings data. The gait sequences are considered to be the 3rd-order tensors and their features are extracted by Multilinear Principal Component Analysis. Obtained gait descriptors are reduced by the supervised selection with greedy hill climbing and genetics search methods. To evaluate the explored individual feature sets, classification is carried out and CFS correlation based measure is utilized. The experimental phase is based on the CASIA Gait Database ’dataset A’. The obtained results are promising. Feature selection gives much more compact gait descriptors and causes significant improvement of human identification.

This article provides information on smart grid and smart measurement systems with a special focus on the advantages of their implementation as well as concerns present at the stage of design and component selection. The tests conducted on a selected group of measurement devices used in smart grid systems made it possible to compare power losses characteristic for these devices. In the analysis presented below, both classic inductive meters and electronic meters with various communication modems were used.

The paper presents history, current state of knowledge and future perspectives of unmanned technology application for military ground vehicles. As the first, the beginning and evolution of unmanned technology from on remote control based solutions to autonomous ones is described. Then classification and overview of systems currently manufactured and developed. At the end of the paper perspectives and directions of unmanned ground vehicles development is presented.

In this paper we propose the upper, and in some cases, lower bounds for norm of solution of linear discrete time-varying system by coefficients matrices. We show that our estimates have two merits. Firstly, we do not need to know eigenvalues or spectral norm of matrices because we can simply calculate it by matrix coefficients. Secondly, our bounds are also valid in case of singular matrices. Moreover, in the paper we present an upper estimate for stationary system.

This paper presents how the Virtual Reality (VR) technology and Computer Graphics (CG) is used nowadays by industry to reduce productions costs, minimize learning curve and eliminates hazard situations. Few examples of procedural training and VR simulators are being presented, as well as the usage of CG for military training and troops support.

In this article is described used in Research and Development Center of Mechanical Appliances OBRUM sp. z o.o. method of vehicle R&D cycle support using serious gaming (SG) solution. Implemented in OBRUM sp. z o.o. solution is described on example of Multipurpose Engineering Machine (WMI) with remote control functionality requirement. Short serious gaming introduction with WMI characteristic familiarize reader with study object. Short description of how SG is used in R&D cycle of modernization and concept vehicle R&D. Conclusion summarizes OBRUM sp. z o. o. experience and presents specific application of research results.