A hybrid architecture for vision-based obstacle avoidance


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GÜZEL M. S., Zakaria W.

Advances in Mechanical Engineering, cilt.2013, 2013 (SCI-Expanded) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 2013
  • Basım Tarihi: 2013
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1155/2013/697415
  • Dergi Adı: Advances in Mechanical Engineering
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This paper proposes a new obstacle avoidance method using a single monocular vision camera as the only sensor which is called as Hybrid Architecture. This architecture integrates a high performance appearance-based obstacle detection method into an optical flow-based navigation system. The hybrid architecture was designed and implemented to run both methods simultaneously and is able to combine the results of each method using a novel arbitration mechanism. The proposed strategy successfully fused two different vision-based obstacle avoidance methods using this arbitration mechanism in order to permit a safer obstacle avoidance system. Accordingly, to establish the adequacy of the design of the obstacle avoidance system, a series of experiments were conducted. The results demonstrate the characteristics of the proposed architecture, and the results prove that its performance is somewhat better than the conventional optical flow-based architecture. Especially, the robot employing Hybrid Architecture avoids lateral obstacles in a more smooth and robust manner than when using the conventional optical flow-based technique. © 2013 Mehmet Serdar Güzel and Wan Zakaria.