A multimodal approach to real-time active vision

The increase in hardware performance versus component cost has brought vision firmly into the realm of practical robotic sensors. We present an overview of an integrated research program to create a general-purpose robotic vision system from an expansive rather than linear perspective, incorporating a multimodal approach to real-time visual interaction with the environment. Design and construction of a high-performance active camera platform using primarily off-the-shelf components has proceeded in parallel with algorithm design and implementation towards a suite of low-level behaviours suitable for feeding quantised data to a multitude of visually guided tasks, from mobile robot navigation and visual servoing to human-robot interaction and instruction. We describe these initiatives, including performance specifications and experimental results obtained under real-world conditions