HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT OF THE YORICK SERIES OF ACTIVE VISION SYSTEMS

This paper presents a review of the design and development of the Yori ck series of active stereo camera platforms and their integration into real-time closed loop active vision systems, whose applications span surveillance, navigation of autonomously guided vehicles (AGVs), and i nspection tasks for teleoperation, including immersive visual telepres ence. The mechatronic approach adopted for the design of the first sys tem, including head/eye platform, local controller, vision engine, gaz e controller and system integration, proved to be very successful. The design team comprised researchers with experience in parallel computi ng, robot control, mechanical design and machine vision. The success o f the project has generated sufficient interest to sanction a number o f revisions of the original head design, including the design of a lig htweight compact head for use on a robot arm, and the further developm ent of a robot head to look specifically at increasing visual resoluti on for visual telepresence. The controller and vision processing engin es have also been upgraded, to include the control of robot heads on m obile platforms and control of vergence through tracking of an operato r's eye movement. This paper details the hardware development of the d ifferent active vision/telepresence systems. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.