thesis

Stratégies de commande référencées multi-capteurs et gestion de la perte du signal visuel pour la navigation d’un robot mobile

  • Control
  • Visual servoing
  • Mobile robots
  • Obstacle avoidance

Some informations on the doctorate degree of David FOLIO

Author
Affiliations
Published

Abstract

The literature provides many techniques to design efficient control laws to realize robotic navigation tasks. In recent years, the sensors improvement gave rise to the sensor-based control which allows to define the robotic task in the sensor space rather than in the configuration space. In this context, as cameras provide high-rate meaningful data, visual servoing has been particularly investigated, and can be used to perform various and accurate navigation tasks. This method, which relies on the interaction between the camera and the visual features motions, consists in regulating an error in the image plane. Nonetheless, vision-based navigation tasks in cluttered environment cannot be expressed as a sole regulation of visual data. Indeed, in this case, it is necessary to preserve not only the robot safety (i.e. non-collision) but also the visual features visibility. This thesis addresses this issue and aims at developing sensor-based control laws allowing a mobile robot to perform vision-based tasks amidst possibly occluding obstacles. We have first proposed techniques able to fulfill simultaneously the two previously mentioned objectives. However, avoiding both collisions and occlusions often over-strained the robotic navigation task, reducing the range of realizable missions. This is the reason why we have developed a second approach which lets the visual features loss occurs if it is necessary for the task realization. Using the link between vision and motion, we have proposed different methods (analytical and numerical) to compute the visual signal as soon it becomes unavailable. We have then applied them to perform vision-based tasks in cluttered environments, before highlighting their interest to deal with a camera failure during the mission.

Doctorate degree

I have defended my PhD in Robotics in 2007 within the Robotics, Action, and Perception (RAP) team of Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems1 (LAAS), CNRS2, under the supervision of Viviane Cadenat, Associate Professor at Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse, France. Specifically, my PhD thesis was entitled Multi-sensor-based control strategies and visual signal loss management for mobile robots navigation. The subject was to design multi-sensor-based control strategies allowing a mobile robot to perform vision-based tasks amidst possibly occluding obstacles. Actually, the sensors’ improvement gave rise to the sensor-based control which allows defining the robotic task in the sensor space rather than in the configuration space. As cameras provide high-rate meaningful data, visual servoing has been particularly investigated, and can be used to perform various and accurate navigation tasks [2], [6], [9]. The objectives are then to perform reliable navigation tasks, despite the presence of obstacles. Thereby, it is necessary to preserve not only the robot safety (i.e. ensuring non-collision) but also the visual features’ visibility to ensure the vision-based task feasibility. To achieve these aims we have first proposed techniques able to fulfill simultaneously the mentioned objectives [7], [8]. However, avoiding both collisions and occlusions often over-strained the robotic navigation task, reducing the range of realizable missions. This is the reason why we have developed a second approach which let occurs the loss of the visual features if it is necessary for the success of the task. Using the link between vision and motion, we have proposed different methods (analytical and numerical) to compute the visual signal as soon it becomes unavailable [4]. We have then applied them to perform vision-based tasks in cluttered environments, before highlighting their interest to deal with a camera failure during the mission [1], [5].

In addition, during my doctorate degree, I also had the opportunity to perform teaching activities, first as temporary teacher (3 years), and then as teaching assistant, specifically in French “Attaché Temporaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche” (ATER,1 year, both for the Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse. These global teaching experiences have led to a total volume of 308 hETD3.

Thesis Details

I obtained a PhD thesis in Robots Control from Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse (France), that was entitled: “Multi-sensor-based control strategies and visual signal loss management for mobile robots navigation[3].

Manuscript
D. Folio PhD thesis (view )
Defended
the 11th July 2007
Committee
President Michel Devy (DR LAAS)
Reviewers

François Chaumette (DR IRISA/INRIA)

Seth Hutchinson (Prof. University of Illinois, USA)

Examiners

Bernard Bayle (MdC Université de Strasbourg)

Michel Courdesses (Prof. Universités de Toulouse)

Director Viviane Cadenat (MdC Université de Toulouse)
Guest Philippe Souères (Prof. Universités de Toulouse)

References

[1]
Folio D. and Cadenat V., “A sensor-based controller able to treat total image loss and to guarantee non-collision during a vision-based navigation task,” in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS’2008), 2008, pp. 3052–3057. doi:10.1109/IROS.2008.4650743
[2]
Chaumette F. and Hutchinson S., “Visual servo control. Part II. Advanced approaches,” IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 109–118, March 2007. doi:10.1109/MRA.2007.339609
[3]
Folio D., “Stratégies de commande référencées multi-capteurs et gestion de la perte du signal visuel pour la navigation d’un robot mobile,” PhD thesis, Université Paul Sabatier, LAAS, Toulouse, France, 2007 [Online]. Available: http://dfolio.fr/research/thesis/
[4]
Folio D. and Cadenat V., “A new controller to perform safe vision-based navigation tasks amidst possibly occluding obstacles,” in European Control Conference (ECC’07), 2007. doi:10.23919/ecc.2007.7068624
[5]
Folio D. and Cadenat V., “Using simple numerical schemes to compute visual features whenever unavailable,” in IFAC International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO’07), 2007.
[6]
Chaumette F. and Hutchinson S., “Visual servo control. Part I. Basic approaches,” IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 82–90, November 2006. doi:10.1109/MRA.2006.250573
[7]
Folio D. and Cadenat V., “A controller to avoid both occlusions and obstacles during a vision-based navigation task in a cluttered environment,” in European Control Conference (ECC’05). Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2005, pp. 3898–3903. doi:10.1109/cdc.2005.1582770
[8]
Folio D. and Cadenat V., “Using redundancy to avoid simultaneously occlusions and collisions while performing a vision-based task amidst obstacles,” in European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR’05), 2005.
[9]
Hutchinson S., Hager G. D., and Corke P. I., “A tutorial on visual servo control,” IEEE transactions on robotics and automation, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 651–670, October 1996. doi:10.1109/70.538972

Footnotes

  1. In French Laboratoire d’Analyse et d’Architecture des Systèmes. LAAS is a laboratory depending on the CNRS. http://www.laas.fr↩︎

  2. Form French National Center for Scientific Research, from French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), is the largest governmental research organization in France. http://www.cnrs.fr↩︎

  3. Equivalent TD hours” that is in French “heures équivalentes TD” (hETD), are the reference hours to calculate the teaching duties. The rules for a tenured teacher are as follows: 1h of course = 1.5hETD, while the others, e.g. 1h of tutorial (TD) = 1h of practical work (TP) = 1hETD.↩︎

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@phdthesis{folio2007,
  author = {Folio, David},
  publisher = {Université Paul Sabatier, LAAS},
  title = {Stratégies de commande référencées multi-capteurs et gestion
    de la perte du signal visuel pour la navigation d’un robot mobile},
  date = {2007-07-11},
  address = {Toulouse, France},
  url = {https://dfolio.fr/publications/thesis/folio2007thesis.html},
  langid = {fr-FR},
  abstract = {The literature provides many techniques to design
    efficient control laws to realize robotic navigation tasks. In
    recent years, the sensors improvement gave rise to the sensor-based
    control which allows to define the robotic task in the sensor space
    rather than in the configuration space. In this context, as cameras
    provide high-rate meaningful data, visual servoing has been
    particularly investigated, and can be used to perform various and
    accurate navigation tasks. This method, which relies on the
    interaction between the camera and the visual features motions,
    consists in regulating an error in the image plane. Nonetheless,
    vision-based navigation tasks in cluttered environment cannot be
    expressed as a sole regulation of visual data. Indeed, in this case,
    it is necessary to preserve not only the robot safety (i.e.
    non-collision) but also the visual features visibility. This thesis
    addresses this issue and aims at developing sensor-based control
    laws allowing a mobile robot to perform vision-based tasks amidst
    possibly occluding obstacles. We have first proposed techniques able
    to fulfill simultaneously the two previously mentioned objectives.
    However, avoiding both collisions and occlusions often over-strained
    the robotic navigation task, reducing the range of realizable
    missions. This is the reason why we have developed a second approach
    which lets the visual features loss occurs if it is necessary for
    the task realization. Using the link between vision and motion, we
    have proposed different methods (analytical and numerical) to
    compute the visual signal as soon it becomes unavailable. We have
    then applied them to perform vision-based tasks in cluttered
    environments, before highlighting their interest to deal with a
    camera failure during the mission.}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Folio D., “Stratégies de commande référencées multi-capteurs et gestion de la perte du signal visuel pour la navigation d’un robot mobile,” PhD., Université Paul Sabatier, LAAS, Toulouse, France, 2007 [Online]. Available: https://dfolio.fr/publications/thesis/folio2007thesis.html