Advanced Vision for Navigation Team

Mentors NASA/JSC Mentor: Mr. Bob Savely, Automation, Robotics and Simulation Systems Division, JSC/NASA TAMU Faculty Mentors: Dr. Tamas Kalmar-Nagy, Aerospace Engineering Staff Mentor: Dr Giovanni Giardini, Aerospace Engineering Student Team Members David Taylor ( AERO), Amanda Collins ( AERO), Aaron Roney ( NUEL), Mark Hibbeler ( AERO), Nessa Freeman (CS), Albert Soto (ME), Stephanie Herd ( CS), Nicholas Logan ( EE)
Project Summary The SEI Tele-Operation Team project for the 2007-2008 academic year involved the design of a prototype system that allows for the tele-operation of a robotic vehicle from a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), which is a virtual cockpit viewable with 3D glasses. The very ambitious team goal was to tele-operate a Ford 150 truck (originally built for the DARPA Grand Challenge) that is equipped with high end GPS, IMU and Lidar instrumentation. During the year, the team has been able to successfully install and operate the CAVE system and a wireless system with TROPOS for communications between the truck and the base station. The team has developed local maps to be utilized with the Landform software, developed software codes on the truck computer that will be used to operate the actuators and sensors of the truck. Finally, the team has successfully demonstrated the tele-operation of an iRobot® Create™ and submitted a full safety analysis report for the truck tele-operation. Many of the project tasks have been aligned with NASA's effort on developing an effective Lunar Communications & Navigation Architecture. In particular, research areas of faculty involved are aimed at developing a framework for stability and performance analysis for systems with network-induced time delays. This is in line with the mission-critical component "Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (217,218)" identified by NASA. For the 2008-2009 academic year we propose a shift in the main focus of the project. To further NASA’s initiatives on "Integrated Onboard GN&C System (383)", and "Advanced Autonomous Systems" we intend to focus on vehicle position/velocity estimation in the absence of GPS signals (lunar surface navigation) while keeping the multi-level, multi-disciplinary structure of the team. In particular, software for stereo vision capable of object recognition and odometry will be developed. Tele-operation will still play an important role in the project, as testing, verification & validation will require this component.
2009 Spring Presentation Vision Team Presentation 2008 Fall Presentation Vision Team Presentation Website Vist the Tele-Operations Temas website at http://sei.tamu.edu/teleoperation