Month: March 2015

Goal net

So, I grabbed some images from robocup 2014 that we took of the goal with the netting.  One has no people behind it and the other had people behind it.  I ran both Canny and Hough on it to see if the netting would stand out.

Canny with people behind the net:

cannyPeopleCanny with no people behind:

CannyNoPeople

 

Then just to show that this pattern just doesn’t show up everywhere I took a random sample of the image with some people:

randomWithPeople

 

And one without people which included the net:

noPeopleRandomWithNet

 

So, it doesn’t look like the net will make the difference.  So, what kind of algorithm will be able to see something even I can’t see?

 

 

White Goal Post Experiment

wall3As you probably can’t see is the fact that I have placed a white pvc pipe in an orange vice grip and put in front of a white background.  I tried running the image through opencv’s HoughLinesP (image below) and Canny and neither can extract the pipe.  However, I’m not surprised as when I zoom into the image the pixels are pretty much identical in color.

wall hough

So, the only option in my opinion is to use the background netting and us that to find the posts.  Otherwise there is really no hope.  Of course that is my rudimentary findings.

 

 

Canny Edge Detection

I think that I might want to try out Canny’s edge detection algorithm to identify the goal posts on the negative of the flood filled image (meaning remove the grass and ball).  I think the main problem will be determining which lines are the goal posts.  Mainly because the robots don’t always see the entire goal.  Sometimes it is just one side or the top.  Also, the image can be very noisy and lines may be jaggy since the head is moving.  Also, the algorithm needs to be very fast.  So, if the Canny method can reliably find edges around the goal posts the main problem will be to isolate them.

Some details on Open CV Canny.

I found this document that a robocup spl team published on their goal detection.  They used a Hough transform.  They made clear that if the background was similar in color to the goal post that it wouldn’t work.  So, I’m not sure if it will work.  Especially at a distance the line due to the curve of the post will essentially blur into the background.  That is why I’m thinking that maybe a Gabor filter that will detect the gray/black goal netting will be a better approach?  However, this at a distance may still pose a problem… Really we just need to try it out!

 

Tom Bihn Robot Soccer Jerseys

Today was eventful.  Sean, my professor, comes in this morning and tells us this story about how he had discovered that the company that makes his backpack had been hacked.  He notified the company and told them about it and the company gave him a $250 gift certificate.  Which was nice for him because he loves there stuff.  One of the things he purchased were these little bags that were just big enough for the robots to fit into.  So, of course he took pictures and shared them with the company and there forums.  Low and behold, he gets a package today and it has six custom made soccer jerseys one for each of our soccer playing robots!  So, today we just had fun with the robots.  We made a little video, nothing too special of them wearing the jerseys and one of them coming by and kicking the ball.  So, I had a pretty fun day.  I didn’t get much real work done, but I had fun.

Travel

Oh man this seems like this is the year I get to travel!  I’m presenting a paper I’m first author of and giving a workshop presentation of another paper at AAMAS in Istanbul, going to Heifei China for Robocup, and most likely going to Hamburg Germany to present a paper at IROS!  That is amazing, I can’t wait!  I’m glad I like to travel.

Decision Theory Paradoxes

I’ve been researching decision theory paradoxes because in my Bounty’s task allocation system I am considering the benefits of giving the bondsman the decision to allocate particular tasks through an auction (ie exclusive) or through its normal bounty (non-exclusive) method.  This brings with it a potentially multi-criteria decision which has me interested about the theoretical ramifications of such a decision.

In my search I have encountered quite a few paradoxes in decision theory, utility theory, and social choice (ie voting).  However, other than the wikipedia listing I haven’t found an authoritative reference (a book) on the subject!  I find this quite strange.  I know probably there are very few people that like this sort of thing, but I believe that knowing about them and that they exist might be of use to multiagent systems researchers who use such theories as the basis for their work.  So, if I can’t find a book or a survey paper on the subject I might write a paper on them.  That would be fun.  I would relate them all to problems in MAS and AI or computer science.  So, it would be Paradoxes that are relevant to an AI researcher.

Computational Sciences and Informatics

Another PhD in Computational Sciences and Informatics.  I wonder if I could pick one of these up then after I get my PhD in CS and have a job.  They have a quantum information science area and I have always been interested in being able to program and think about problems with quantum computers.  Especially with application to AI.

Might want to work here: http://www.nas.nasa.gov/quantum/index.html (NASA’s QuAIL Quantum AI Lab!).