Abstract
This paper presents the implementation of an algorithm based on elementary computer vision techniques that allow an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to identify obstacles (including another UAV) and to avoid them, using only a trivial 5MP camera and applying six mathematical treatments on image. The proposed algorithm of this paper was applied in a drone in real flight. The algorithm proved to be quite efficient both in identifying obstacles ahead and in transposing the same obstacles. Another interesting result is that the algorithm can identify small mobile obstacles and avoid collisions, for example other drones.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
E.R. Davies, Machine Vision: Theory, Algorithms, Practicalities, 2005, ISBN 012206092X, 9780122060922. (2005).
M.D.L. Santos, E.H. Shiguemori, R.L.M. Mota, A.C.B. Ramos, Change detection in satellite images using self-organizing maps, in 12th International Conference on Information Technology—New Generations (ITNG 2015), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (2015), pp. 662–667
R.C. Gonzales, E.R. Woods, Processamento de Imagens Digitais (in Portuguese) (São Paulo, Brazil, 2000)
A. Bueno, Fundamentos da Computacão Gráfica (in Portuguese) (Pontifıcia Universidade Catolica, Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, 2011)
D.H. Ballard, C.M. Brown, Computer Vision (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1982)
A.M. Waxman, J.J. LeMoigne, B. Scinvasan, A visual navigation system for autonomous land vehicles. IEEE J. Robot. Autom. RA-3(2), 124–141 (1987)
C. Thrope, M.H. Hebert, T. Kanade, S.A. Shafer, Vision and navigation for the Carnegie-Mellon Navilab. IEEE Trans. Pattern. Anal. Mach. Intell. PAM1-10(3), 362–373 (1988)
A. Davison, Real-time simultaneous localization and mapping with a single camera. IEEE ICCV 2, 1403–1410 (2003)
M. Lee, S. Hur, Y. Park, An obstacle classification method using multi feature comparison based on 2D LIDAR database, 2015, Information Technology—New Generations (ITNG 2015), in 12th International Conference on, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (2015), pp. 674–679
S. Garćıa, M.E. Lopez, R. Barea, L.M. Bergasa, A. Gomez, E.J. Molinos, International Conference on Indoor SLAM for Micro Aerial Vehicles Control Using Monocular Camera and Sensor Fusion, Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC 2016) (2016)
J.T. Amenyo, D. Phelps, O. Oladipo, F. Sewovoe-Ekuoe, S. Jadoo-nanan, S. Jadoonanan, T. Tabassum, S. Gnabode, T.D. Sherpa, M. Falzone, A. Hossain, A. Kublal, MedizDroids Project: ultra-low cost, low-altitude, affordable and sustainable UAV multicopter drones for mosquito vector control in malaria disease management, in IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014) (2014)
M.F.A. Rahman, A.I.C. Ani, S.Z. Yahaya, Z. Hussain, R. Boudville, A. Ahmad, Implementation of Quadcopter as a teaching tool to enhance engineering courses, in IEEE 8th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED 2016) (2016)
Ascending Technologies, GmbH, http://www.asctec.de. Accessed 13 March 2017
K. Sreenath, T. Lee, V. Kumar, geometric control and differential flatness of a quadrotor UAV with a cable-suspended load, in IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) (Florence, Italy, 2013), pp. 2269–2274
Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 LT, https://www.ubuntu.com, Accessed 13 March 2017
OpenCV 3.2, http://opencv.org. Accessed 13 March 2017
G. Bradski, A. Kaehler, Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision with the Open CV Library (O’Reilly)
ROS Indigo (Robot Operation System), http://www.ros.org. Accessed 13 March 2017
Pixhawk, https://pixhawk.org/. Accessed 13 March 2017
MavLink, http://www.mavlink.org/. Accessed 13 March 2017
Raspberry pi, https://www.raspberrypi.org. Accessed 13 March 2017
L.F. Lima (2010), https://lazarolima.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/proces-sando-imagens-em-grayscale-e-negativo-em-c/(in Portuguese). Accessed 13 March 2017
OpenCV 2.4.13.2 documentation, Blur, http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/modules/imgproc/doc/filtering.html?highlight=blurcv2.blur. Accessed 27 April 2017
OpenCV 2.4.13.2 documentation (imgproc module), Image Processing, Canny Edge Detector, http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/doc/tutorials/imgproc/imgtrans/canny_detector/cannydetector.html?highlight=canny. Accessed 27 April 2017
OpenCV 2.4.13.2 documentation, Structural Analysis and Shape De-scriptors, http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/modules/imgproc/doc/structural_analysis_and_shapedescriptors.html?highlight= findcontourscv2.findConto.urs. Accessed 27 April 2017
OpenCV 2.4.13.2 documentation, Basic Drawing, http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/doc/tutorials/core/basic_geometric_drawing/basic_geometric_drawing.html?highlight=scalar. Accessed 27 April 2017
OpenCV 2.4.13.2 documentation, drawContours, http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/modules/imgproc/doc/structural_ analysis_and_shape_descriptors.html?highlight=drawcontoursdrawcon tours. Accessed 27 April 2017
The Bored Engineers (https://theboredengineers.com/), The Quadcopter: Control the Orientation, https://theboredengineers.com/2012/05/30/the-quadcopter-basics/. Accessed 11 April 2017
Experiment, Drone Flight, https://youtube/JA_oQORdcjs. Accessed 27 April 2017
The Bebop Parrot Drone website, https://www.parrot.com/us/drones/parrotbebop2. Accessed 05 May 2017
CAPES, http://www.capes.gov.br. Accessed 13 March 2017
Acknowledgement
We thank the Black Bee team of the Federal University of Itabubá that made the drones available and operated during the experiments.
This work was funded by Capes—Coordination of Improvement of Higher Level Personnel [31].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this paper
Cite this paper
Martins, W.M., Braga, R.G., Ramos, A.C.B., Mora-Camino, F. (2018). A Computer Vision Based Algorithm for Obstacle Avoidance. In: Latifi, S. (eds) Information Technology - New Generations. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 738. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77028-4_73
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77028-4_73
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77027-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77028-4
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)