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Egocentric Direction and the Visual Guidance of Robot Locomotion Background, Theory and Implementation

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Biologically Motivated Computer Vision (BMCV 2002)

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Abstract and Overview

In this paper we describe the motivation, design and implementation of a system to visually guide a locomoting robot towards a target and around obstacles. The work was inspired by a recent suggestion that walking humans rely on perceived egocentric direction rather than optic flow to guide locomotion to a target. We briefly summarise the human experimental work and then illustrate how direction based heuristics can be used in the visual guidance of locomotion. We also identify perceptual variables that could be used in the detection of obstacles and a control law for the regulation of obstacle avoidance. We describe simulations that demonstrate the utility of the approach and the implementation of these control laws on a Nomad mobile robot. We conclude that our simple biologically inspired solution produces robust behaviour and proves a very promising approach.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Vision Research, York University, 4700 Keele Street, M3J 1P3, North York, ON, Canada

    Simon K. Rushton & Robert S. Allison

  2. Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, M3J 1P3, North York, ON, Canada

    Simon K. Rushton

  3. Department of Computer Science, York University, 4700 Keele Street, M3J 1P3, North York, ON, Canada

    Jia Wen & Robert S. Allison

Authors
  1. Simon K. Rushton
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  2. Jia Wen
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  3. Robert S. Allison
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstraße 38, 72076, Tübingen, Germany

    Heinrich H. Bülthoff  & Christian Wallraven  & 

  2. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, Anam-dong, Seongbuk-ku, 136-701, Seoul, Korea

    Seong-Whan Lee

  3. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 45 Carleton Street, 02142, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Tomaso A. Poggio

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Rushton, S.K., Wen, J., Allison, R.S. (2002). Egocentric Direction and the Visual Guidance of Robot Locomotion Background, Theory and Implementation. In: Bülthoff, H.H., Wallraven, C., Lee, SW., Poggio, T.A. (eds) Biologically Motivated Computer Vision. BMCV 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2525. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36181-2_58

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36181-2_58

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00174-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36181-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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