Hi_Lite

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Hi_Lite

• Scott Fukuda
• Chad Kawakami

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Background

• The DARPA Grand Challenge
• The Defense Advance Research Project Agency
  (DARPA) established a contest in 2004 to set a
  new level of accomplishment for autonomous land
  vehicles. This was in response to a goal set by
  Congress that by 2015 twenty percent of U.S.
  military vehicles on a battlefield would be
  unmanned. In The Grand Challenge, contestants
  vied for a one million dollar prize by racing for
  150 miles.

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HI_Lite Vehicle

• Modified from a Columbia Par Car electric scout
  vehicle
• Akamai Research LLC hosted and led the Hawaii
  effort with volunteers and sponsorship from
  e-Vehicles of Hawaii.
• In only three months the car was born.
• HI_Lite stayed in consideration up to the semi
  finals of the DARPA challenge.

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HI_Lite Vehicle
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Current status

• Vehicle is currently dismantled.
• No longer bounded by the DARPA contest rules.
• Looking to improve operational capabilities/
  strategies and robotic controls, integrate
  wireless feedback and multiple remote
  controllers, including human operators, and allow
  for urban environments.

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Our Project

• To explore the capabilities of the vehicles
  eyes and derive a primitive useful environment
  describing system.
• Coupling simple optical devices to create an
  enhanced environment describing system.

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Hardware

• Videre Design - Variable baseline digital stereo
  Camera head
• IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface
• Uncompressed video at megapixel resolution (7.5
  fps) or VGA (30 fps)
• Subsampling modes (decimation) for smaller frame
  sizes, faster frame rates, lower noise

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Small Vision System

• Developer Kit for stereo applications
• Functions
• Calibrate a stereo head
• Rectify the images to account for distortion,
  perform stereo correlation to compute a range
  image, and display the range image in OpenGL 3D
  form.

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Small Vision System
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Small Vision System
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Other Hardware

• Laser Pointers
• SICK Laser Range Detector
• Color lenses

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Test Bed
5 1/2 Feet
6 Feet
5 Feet
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Test Bed 2
Laser array
5 1/2 Feet
6 Feet
5 Feet
Filters
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Process

• Create a laser grid and illuminate grid on
  objects within the camera's view
• Use the SICK Laser Range Detector to establish
  numerical calibration points
• Calibrate/tune the stereo camera using the SICK's
  data
• If necessary, external "pre-processing" will be
  done using color lenses as filters
• Record stereo images
• Rectify the images to account for distortion
• If necessary, "post-processing" (via computer) to
  provide other types of filtering
• Perform stereo correlation to compute a range
  image (depth contours)
• Interpret data and perform numerical analysis to
  provide useful outputs

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Work to be done

• Setup Test bed in a lab
• Test hardware and find performance curves
• Find or develop and useful simple algorithm for
  object detection
• Test effects of coupling devices

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QUESTIONS?