Multi-Task Active-Vision in Robotics

Abstract

Vision constitutes the most important sense in the vast majority of animals. Researchers in robotic systems, where biological inspiration has been always a reference, frequently try to make use of vision as a primary sensor. The technological advances have notably favoured this, permitting the incorporation of cameras to a wide variety of robots, including even low cost models. Initially configured as passive devices, soon the same biological emulation led to the introduction of active stereo heads with several mechanical and optical degrees of freedom. However, the use of active vision is far from trivial and has and still is proposing challenging problems. On the other hand, robots in general, and more specifically mobile robots, are extremely complex systems on their own. The “scientific pull” aiming at obtaining higher and higher levels of autonomy has contributed to create a great number of research lines, many of them remaining still open: obstacle avoidance, localization, navigation, SLAM. Fig. 1. Museum robot with active binocular head