Application areas

The natural applications of our research are obviously in robotics. In the past, we mainly worked in the field of the grasping and of the manipulation of tools, in the field of underwater robotics for the stabilization of images, and the positioning of uninstrumented robot arms, in the field of agro-industry for the positioning of a vision sensor in order to ensure an improvement of the quality controls of agro-alimentary products, as well as in the field of the video surveillance (control of the movements of a pan-tilt camera to track mobile natural objects). More recently, we addressed the field of mobile robotics via the activities undertaken around the Cycab vehicle: detection and tracking of mobile objects (pedestrians, other vehicles), control by visual servoing of the movements of the vehicle.

In fact, researches which we undertake in the Lagadic group can apply to all the fields of robotics implying a vision sensor. They are indeed conceived to be independent of the robot system considered (the robot and the vision sensor can even be virtual as we will see it in the continuation).

Currently, we are interested in using visual servoing for the control of robot arms in space, and underactuated flying robots, such as miniature helicopters and aircrafts.

In collaboration with the Visages team, we also address the field of medical robotics. The applications under consideration for the moment turn around new functionalities of assistance to the clinician during a medical examination: visual servoing on echographic images, active perception for the optimal generation of 3D~echographic images, coupling between an off-set vision of the field of examination and a force sensor for tele-operated examinations, etc.

Robotics is not the only possible application field to our researches. In the past, we were interested in collaboration with the Siames project to apply the techniques of visual servoing in the field of computer animation. It can be a question either of controlling the movement of virtual humanoids according to their pseudo-perception, or to control the point of view of visual restitution of an animation. In both cases, potential applications are in the field of virtual reality, for example for the realization of video games, or virtual cinematography.

Applications also exist in computer vision and augmented reality. It is then a question of carrying out a virtual visual servoing for the 3D~localization of a tool with respect to the vision sensor, or for the estimation of its 3D~motion. This field of application is very promising, because in full rise for the realization of special effects in the multi-media field or for the design and the inspection of objects manufactured in the industrial world.

Lastly, our work in visual servoing and active perception can be related with those carried out in cogniscience, in particular in the field of psychovision (for example on the study of eye motion in the animal and human visual system, or on the study of the representation of perception, or on the study of the links between action and perception).