Machine perception in unstructured and unknown environments

Abstract

This chapter discusses the issue of machine perception from the perspective of a system design process. The three issues of information gathering, data representation and reasoning are discussed, leading to a general high-level model of the problem. The model is intended to be generic enough to allow a wide variety of tasks to be performed using a single set of sensory data. It is argued that the model has a direct correspondence with some recent biological models. Finally, an application is presented showing how the model may be applied to solving real-world problems, specifically an autonomous system operating in outdoor unstructured environments. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.