Vision-based Robot Navigation

Abstract

Starting with a summary of the history of Artificial Intelligence, this book makes the bridge to the modern debate on the definition of Intelligence and the path to building Intelligent Machines. Since the definition of Intelligence is itself subject to open debate, the quest for Intelligent machines is pursuing a moving target.

Apparently, intelligent behaviour is, to a great extent, the result of using a sophisticated associative memory, more than the result of heavy processing. The book describes theories on how the brain works, associative memory models and how a particular model - the Sparse Distributed Memory (SDM) - can be used to navigate a robot based on visual memories. Other robot navigation methods are also comprehensively revised and compared to the method proposed. The performance of the SDM-based robot has been tested in different typical problems, such as illumination changes, occlusions and image noise, taking the SDM to the limits. The results are extensively discussed in the book.

About the Author

Mateus Mendes is Adjunct Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Portugal, and researcher at the Institute of Systems and Robotics of the University of Coimbra. He received his BSc in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2001), his MSc in Intelligent Systems (2004) and his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2011), all from the University of Coimbra.

A. Paulo Coimbra received his BSc (1985) and PhD (1996) degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Coimbra since 1996. He is a researcher in the ISR-Institute of Systems and Robotics of the University of Coimbra.

Manuel M. Crisóstomo received his BSc degree from Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, in 1978, his MSc from Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, in 1987, and PhD from Brunel University, U K., in 1992. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Coimbra and researcher at the Institute of Systems and Robotics in Coimbra.