An Image Wherever You Look! Making Vision Just Another Sensor for AI/Robotics Projects

No. 1: Thirty-First AAAI Conference On Artificial Intelligence

Volume

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 31

EAAI Symposium Full Paper

Visual sensing can be difficult to incorporate into undergraduate robotics and AI assignments. Images, after all, do not provide a direct estimate of the geometric conditions within the field of view. Yet vision is increasingly compelling as a part of undergraduate AI and robotics, given the centrality of pixels in our students' interactions with technology and each other. This paper shares a small-footprint framework designed to make visual sensing as easy to incorporate into AI projects and assignments, e.g., as a source of evidence for localization algorithms, as range sensors. The framework leverages (hand-built) circular panoramas and the image-matching capabilities provided by OpenCV's python library. An example localization project highlights its pedagogical accessibility and ease of deployment atop low-cost hardware and alongside other sensors.

10.1609/aaai.v31i1.10551