Updates
Note on the Updates:- MRDS = Microsoft Robotics Developers Studio
- FCRAR = Florida Conference on Recent Advances in Robotics
Presentation and Demo - May 11, 2010
The final presentation was given during the
Bradley University Senior Project Conference at 11:00AM, Tuesday May 4.
A PDF version of the slides can be found
here. A PPS version with
working animations is also
here. The PDF version does not have
animations so several of the slides may not make much sense.
Overall the presentation and questions went very well. On April 23 the final version of the FCRAR
conference paper was
submitted. Last Friday April 30 all of the seniors presented their
various projects to the Industrial Advisory Board. Each group
needed to have a poster for this
presentation. With the addition of the colors algorithm, VBASR
has improved dramatically. The best total system works with
96.6%
of the test images! In addition, the system was tested by
attaching the camera to the iRobot and manually driving the iRobot in
the direction the algorithm selected. In this manner, the iRobot
identified and navigated down the center of the hallway! In every
sense VBASR is officially a success. Many updates have been made 'behind the scenes.'
After reviewing the different successful and unsuccessful parameters,
several problems were discovered. About half of the images in the
data set were discarded. All of the images within a foot of the
walls were taken out; VBASR should never be in that situation.
Repetitive images were also discarded to have a collection of unique
pictures to test the vision algorithms. There are approximately 300
pictures remaining in the data set. After scattered work the last few weeks (thanks
to many other senior year responsibilities) a large data set of about
600 images was collected to be used to evaluate the algorithms for VBASR.
Secondly, a program was developed that will score the algorithms by
counting the number of 'correct' and 'almost right' images out of the
original 600. Also, please check out the photos page! Large update completed! VBASR: The Vision System abstract was
submitted for review to the Florida Conference for Recent Advances in
Robotics (FCRAR) on February 29. FCRAR 2010 is hosted by the University
of North Florida in Jacksonville Florida. The
abstract was a week late due to the
Design Review
Presentation
that was due the day after the abstract for
FCRAR was due. However, with a generous extension from the folks
in Florida, the abstract is officially in. No word yet on official
acceptance. The last few weeks
have seen a marked improvement on the computer vision front.
OpenCV has successfully installed and works (finally). After many
different tests and example programs the latest program has shown some
good possibilities. The current algorithm that is being used is
rather convoluted (pun intended!).
Yesterday was the faculty demo for VBASR.
The results were
presented to four faculty members.
Lastly,
the presentation for FCRAR is scheduled for May 20 or May 21 in
Jacksonville Florida! After the notebook is updated along
with final updates to the website this project is finished! Just
over 300 hours spent and over 1700 lines of code! For
more details on various parts of the project (example code, files)
please contact Joel Schipper.
Finishing Up - May 3, 2010
Lastly, my final presentation for the Bradley University Senior Project
Conference is tomorrow morning at 11:00AM. After the presentation
the slides will be uploaded. The
abstract was adjusted for the BU conference.96.5% Successful! - April 13, 2010
In addition, the first draft of the FCRAR conference paper was
submitted last Wednesday April 7. Upon final updates and
revisions, the paper will be published onto this website.
The next step is to implement the C++ written image
processing code into MRDS. However, after some research, this
seems unlikely to be completed in the remaining time left for work.
Updating this website, completing the FCRAR paper and finalizing the
presentation are the immediate tasks at hand.
Under the Hood updates - March 27, 2010
Other less noticeable changes were made to some of the code:
The next step is to develop a third algorithm in
addition to the first two (lines and corners). The third
algorithm will take advantage of the difference in color between the
walls and the floor of the hallway. Take a look at this
photo
for example.
VBASR - the Vision System has been officially accepted to FCRAR!
The conference takes place on May 20 and 21. The first draft of
the conference paper is coming up soon...Finally some real numbers! - March 12, 2010
The images are split into 7 regions:
Hard Left, Left, Slight Left, Straight, Slight Right, Right and Hard
Right. If the algorithm selects the correct direction then it
has evaluated correctly. If it only misses by one slot (selects Slight Left when
it should be Left) then it evaluates as correct for that image as well.
This is necessary to account for the fact that the 'correct' direction
in a given image is often a tossup between two regions.
After much testing and tweaking of my
current algorithm, the best result was an algorithm that chose a correct
direction 83.39% of the time, meaning it correctly identifies the
direction it should go for every 5 out of 6 images!
Next up is to develop a third
algorithm (possibly based on the color of the hallway) to raise the
percentage of correctly identified pictures even higher.
Visit FCRAR.Making Progress - February 12, 2010
1. Input image via webcam (grayscale or color)
2. Image Smoothing (Median or
Gaussian filter)
3. Canny Edge Detection
4. Corner Detection
5. Vertical Line Strength
6. Decision
This
latest algorithm will be tested next week.
Photos showing OpenCV
functionality will be added in the short-term future.Return to Bradley - January 25, 2009
While classes started a week ago, this is the first
updated of the new semester. The laptop we are using has been
successfully re-formatted and re-fitted with Windows 7 and all of the
peripherals have been re-installed. Microsoft Robotics Developer
Studio (MRDS) still works as expected. The major task at hand is
getting OpenCV installed correctly and operational within Visual Studio
2008. After working through many different tutorials
unsuccessfully, just this morning a very exhaustive 11 page PDF document
was found. This new tutorial will be attempted tomorrow. If successful, the
document will be uploaded to the website for anyone to use. As you
can probably tell, the installation process for OpenCV is not simple and
overly painful.
End of the Semester - December 08, 2009
This will be the last update of the Fall semester.
The issues described in the last update have been resolved. After
much discussion, no new hardware will be bought at this point. If
the computer vision programs are up and running, then the department
will purchase a small, light netbook computer. In this way, all
the wireless issues can be avoided, along with worrying about drivers
and whatnot. The netbook will be able to run Windows and MRDS. In this fashion, the hardware
will be implemented.
The software implementation will be more
difficult. Using a wrapper to enable the C++ files (OpenCV) to be
called in C# files (MRDS). In such a manner, new programs written
in C# will be able to run the OpenCV functions. This will be a
steep learning curve.
Enough of the minor issues. Now the
meat of the project needs to be explored and learned. Winter break will
be spent reading, learning and practicing Computer Vision, thanks to the
textbooks that Professor Schipper has obtained.
Presentation - December 03, 2009
As the semester is wrapping up all of the groups need to give their initial presentations.
The slides are available on the
Deliverables page. The presentation went
very well over all and my audience asked difficult questions.
Several people (including my advisor) offered a lot of feedback and the
slides posted are actually slightly revised.
New Problems - November 20, 2009
After several weeks of research and documentation, a few major problems have cropped up.
The first issue is considering the communications between the iRobot,
Webcam and processor. There are several options: other hardware, mounted
laptop, or off-board computing. Each of these options introduce new
problems. My project is about computer vision so I want to spend as
little time as possible to interface the system together.
The second major issue is programming.
Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio uses C# for its programs.
OpenCV uses C/C++. This issue is yet to be resolved also.
First Video - November 12, 2009
First communications with Microsoft Robotics Developers Studio and the iRobot
Create were established last week. Working on the webcams and
investigating the image processing services within MRDS. The
documentation suggests that it is a poor image processing program but it
may be all that the VBASR needs. The first
video is uploaded...the
download time is very long. My apologies. A few
pictures were added
also. The documents are still coming.Website Created - October 29, 2009
The website is officially up!