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Publications

Publications by CRAS

2015

High-Accuracy Low-Cost RTK-GPS for an Unmannned Surface Vehicle

Authors
Matias, B; Oliveira, H; Almeida, J; Dias, A; Ferreira, H; Martins, A; Silva, E;

Publication
OCEANS 2015 - GENOVA

Abstract
This work presents a low cost RTK-GPS system for localization of unmanned surface vehicles. The system is based on the use of standard low cost L1 band receivers and in the RTKlib open source software library. Mission scenarios with multiple robotic vehicles are addressed as the ones envisioned in the ICARUS search and rescue case where the possibility of having a moving RTK base on a large USV and multiple smaller vehicles acting as rovers in a local communication network allows for local relative localization with high quality. The approach is validated in operational conditions with results presented for moving base scenario. The system was implemented in the SWIFT USV with the ROAZ autonomous surface vehicle acting as a moving base. This setup allows for the performing of a missions in a wider range of environments and applications such as precise 3D environment modeling in contained areas and multiple robot operations.

2015

Structured Light System Calibration for Perception in Underwater Tanks

Authors
Lopes, F; Silva, H; Almeida, JM; Silva, E;

Publication
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS (IBPRIA 2015)

Abstract
The process of visually exploring underwater environments is still a complex problem. Underwater vision systems require complementary means of sensor information to help overcome water disturbances. This work proposes the development of calibration methods for a structured light based system consisting on a camera and a laser with a line beam. Two different calibration procedures that require only two images from different viewpoints were developed and tested in dry and underwater environments. Results obtained show, an accurate calibration for the camera/projector pair with errors close to 1 mm even in the presence of a small stereos baseline.

2015

Structured Light System for Underwater Inspection Operations

Authors
Lopes, F; Silva, H; Almeida, JM; Martins, A; Silva, E;

Publication
OCEANS 2015 - GENOVA

Abstract
In this work we propose the development of a stereo SLS system for underwater inspection operations. We demonstrate how to perform a SLS calibration both in dry and underwater environments using two different methods. The proposed methodology is able to achieve quite accurate results, lower than 1 mm in dry environments. We also display a 3D underwater scan of a known object size, a sea scallop, where the system is able to perform a scan with a global error lower than 2% of the object size.

2015

Uncertainty Based Multi-Robot Cooperative Triangulation

Authors
Dias, A; Almeida, J; Lima, P; Silva, E;

Publication
ROBOCUP 2014: ROBOT WORLD CUP XVIII

Abstract
The paper presents a multi-robot cooperative framework to estimate the 3D position of dynamic targets, based on bearing-only vision measurements. The uncertainty of the observation provided by each robot equipped with a bearing-only vision system is effectively addressed for cooperative triangulation purposes by weighing the contribution of each monocular bearing ray in a probabilistic manner. The envisioned framework is evaluated in an outdoor scenario with a team of heterogeneous robots composed of an Unmanned Ground and Aerial Vehicle.

2015

Probabilistic Egomotion for Stereo Visual Odometry

Authors
Silva, H; Bernardino, A; Silva, E;

Publication
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT & ROBOTIC SYSTEMS

Abstract
We present a novel approach of Stereo Visual Odometry for vehicles equipped with calibrated stereo cameras. We combine a dense probabilistic 5D egomotion estimation method with a sparse keypoint based stereo approach to provide high quality estimates of vehicle's angular and linear velocities. To validate our approach, we perform two sets of experiments with a well known benchmarking dataset. First, we assess the quality of the raw velocity estimates in comparison to classical pose estimation algorithms. Second, we added to our method's instantaneous velocity estimates a Kalman Filter and compare its performance with a well known open source stereo Visual Odometry library. The presented results compare favorably with state-of-the-art approaches, mainly in the estimation of the angular velocities, where significant improvements are achieved.

2015

Rail vehicle localization exploiting rail track georeferenced coordinates

Authors
Ferreira, AJ; Almeida, JM; Silva, E;

Publication
U.Porto Journal of Engineering

Abstract
A novel dead reckoning algorithm conceived for localization of small inspection rail vehicles in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) denied environments is presented. This work focus on simplifying the rail vehicle localization task, taking into account restrictions on movement imposed by the railroad tracks. Considering that dead reckoning techniques accumulate errors over time, leading to increasing global uncertainty, a method was designed to correct the estimates and also smooth trajectory errors backwards in time, through visualization of global landmarks. Results show the effectiveness of this approach in reducing long-term position errors. The current document reports real railroad experiments, featuring a specially designed non-motorized mobile modeling vehicle.

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