Planning and Control of Mobile Robots in Image Space from Overhead Cameras

In this work, we present a framework for the development of a planar mobile robot controller based on image plane feedback. We show that the design of such a motion controller can be accomplished in the image plane by making use of a subset of the parameters that relate the image plane to the ground plane, while still leveraging the simplifications offered by modeling the system as a differentially flat system. Our method relies on a waypoint-based trajectory generator, with all the waypoints specified in the image, as seen by an overhead observer. We present some results from simulation as well as from experiments that validate the ideas presented in this work and discuss some ideas for future work.