Abstract
This paper presents a motion-planning strategy for multiple, mobile sensor platforms using visual sensors with a finite field of view. Visual sensors are used to collect position measurements of potential targets within the search domain. Measurements are assimilated into a multi-target Bayesian likelihood ratio tracker that recursively produces a probability density function over the possible target positions. Vehicles are dynamically routed using a controller based on a concept from artificial physics, where vehicle motion depends on the target probability at their location as well as the distance to nearby agents. In this paradigm, the inverse log-likelihood ratio represents temperature, i.e., high likelihood corresponds to cold temperature and low likelihood corresponds to high temperature. Vehicles move at a temperature-dependent speed along the negative gradient of the temperature surface while interacting locally with other agents via a Lennard-Jones potential in order to emergently transition between the three states of matter—solid, liquid, and gas. We show that the gradient-following behavior corresponds to locally maximizing the mutual information between the measurements and the target state. The performance of the algorithm is experimentally demonstrated for visual measurements in a motion capture facility using quadrotor sensor platforms equipped with downward facing cameras.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Keith Sullivan for the Sphero computer vision tracking software and Tom Apker and Frank Lagor for discussions pertaining to the design of the control algorithm. This work was performed at the Naval Research Laboratory and was funded by the Office of Naval Research under Grant Number N0001413WX21045, “Mobile Autonomous Navy Teams for Information Surveillance and Search (MANTISS)”, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under DDDAS Grant No. FA95501310162. The views, positions and conclusions expressed herein reflect only the authors’ opinions and expressly do not reflect those of the Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, or the Naval Research Laboratory.
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Sydney, N., Paley, D.A. & Sofge, D. Physics-inspired motion planning for information-theoretic target detection using multiple aerial robots. Auton Robot 41, 231–241 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-015-9542-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-015-9542-0