Research issues in vision and control

Abstract

The past decade has seen an increasing interest in the areas of real-time vision, visual tracking, active focus of attention in vision, and vision-based control of motion. Although these topics encompass a diverse set of problems spanning the fields of vision, control, robotics, and artificial intelligence, they all share a common focus: the application or processing of visual information in a way which entails the design and analysis of algorithms incorporating concepts studied in the field of control, namely feedback, estimation, and dynamics.

This chapter, which originally appeared as a white paper distributed to participants before the Block Island workshop on Vision and Control, paints a general picture of several problems and issues at the confluence of vision and control. In the final chapter, we return to some of these topics in light of the discussions which took place during the scheduled break-out groups at the workshop. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first two are a discourse on two questions—Why Vision? and Why Control? Within these sections, we briefly discuss focussed topical areas and list some motivational questions. The final section contains some cross-cutting themes and questions.