tracking the robot from the overhead cam

Question

I am thinking of creating a robot that can navigate using a map. It is controlled from a PC. An 8-bit controller performs low level tasks and the PC is doing the image processing. I plan to implement it in a single room where the robot is placed and the robot and environment are tracked by a camera from a height or from the ceiling of the room. First, the robot needs to be mapped, like this http://www.societyofrobots.com/programming_wavefront.shtml

To do:

Track the robot from some height using camera Following the wavefont algorithim to locate robot and obstacles.

Procedure:(just my idea)

• The camera will give image of the robot surrounded by obstacles in the random places. using some opencv technique draw some grind over the image.

• Locating the grid which contain robot(by having some colored symbol over the robot) and locating the grids containing the obstacle.

• Now the grids with obstacle is thought as wall and the remaining is the free space for the robot to navigate.

• robot is going to get the goal place which should be reached is given from the pc(may be like point the place to reach in the image by mouse click).

firstly finding the obstacle from the video stream is to be done for that iam going to catch a image of the robot which is in the room now the image is edit by manually in M.S paint by filling the grid with stationary obstacle by some color say red.

now the edited image is going to be the reference and it is compared with video stream to tell the free space available to robot.

each grid is given some value using that place value of the robot should be determined

now i should be able to give some grid value in the free space to make it as goal for the robot

now the Pc should calculate and tell the robot which grid should be traveled to reach the goal. the only thing the robot need to figure out itself is dynamic obstacle avoidance like cat walking across the robot

comparing the area of the room with the image of some dimension to find how far the robot moved and how far to go

is it possible to do? can anybody help me to do this?

\thanks in advance

Answer 1

Not sure if this will help you, but I did some work related to your post. Though I'd share.

http://letsmakerobots.com/node/38208