River Mapping from Low Flying Rotorcraft
Speaker: Sanjiv Singh , The Robotics Institute, CMU
Date: June 27 2012
Time: 3:00PM to 4:00PM
Location: 32-D463 Star
Host: John Leonard, MIT CSAIL
Contact: John Leonard, x35305, jleonard@mit.edu
Relevant URL: http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~ssingh/
Rivers in areas with heavy vegetation are hard to map from the air. We have been working on the
task of mapping their course and the vegetation along the shores with the specific intent of determining
river width and canopy height. A complication in such an environment is that GPS may not be available
depending on the thickness of the surrounding canopy.
In this talk I will discuss the components of a multimodal perception system to be used for the active
exploration and mapping of a river from a small rotorcraft flying a few meters above the water. I will
describe key component technologies that use computer vision and laser scanning to follow the river
without the use of a prior map, estimate motion of the rotorcraft, ensure collision free operation and
create a three dimensional representation of the riverine environment. While the ability to fly
simplifies the navigation problem, it also introduces an additional set of constraints in terms of size,
weight and power. Hence, our solutions are cognizant of the need to perform multi-kilometer missions
with a payload that weighs less than a kilo. I will conclude with experimental results in representative
environments.
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Bio
Sanjiv Singh is a Research Professor at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. His
recent work has two main themes: perception in natural environments and multi-agent coordination.
He has led projects in both ground and air vehicles operating in unknown or partially known
environments, in applications such as mining, agriculture, emergency response, surveillance and
exploration. He has recently led projects that have demonstrated autonomous navigation for a full
scale helicopter and have developed autonomy for a flying car. Prof Singh received his PhD in Robotics
from Carnegie Mellon (1995). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Field Robotics.
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