Performance comparison of vision sensors and processing power of two robotic platforms for obstacle avoidance

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison of performance for the vision sensors and processing power of two, widely used, robotic systems: NXT Mindstorms and SRV-1 Blackfin. The performance analysis was done in relation to an obstacle avoidance algorithm implemented on both platforms. Three case studies were performed: in the first case study we analyzed the accuracy of object recognitions, in the second case we analyzed the performance of multiple object detection and in third case determined the average time it took each robot avoid the obstacle. These case studies show how much the performance depreciates with the use of low level hardware, like the NXT, for the task of obstacle avoidance. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.