Image analysis, and its application to sensory input (computer vision) is a fairly mature field, so it is surprising that its techniques are not extensively used in robotic applications. The reason for this is that, traditionally, robots have been used in controlled environments where sophisticated computer vision was not necessary, for example in car manufacturing. As the field of robotics has moved toward providing general purpose robots that must function in the real world, it has become necessary that the robots be provided with robust sensors capable of understanding the complex world around them. However, when researchers apply techniques previously studied in image analysis literature to the field of robotics, several difficult problems emerge. In this thesis we examine four reasons why it is difficult to apply work in image analysis directly to real-time, general purpose computer vision applications. These are: improvement in the computational complexity of image analysis algorithms, robustness to dynamic and unpredictable visual conditions, independence from domain specific knowledge in object recognition and the development of debugging facilities. This thesis examines each of these areas making several innovative contributions in each area. We argue that, although each area is distinct, improvement must be made in all four areas before vision will be utilised as the primary sensory input for mobile, autonomous robotic applications. In the first area, the computational complexity of image analysis algorithms, we note the dependence of a large number of high-level processing routines on a small number of low-level algorithms. Therefore, improvement to a small set of highly utilised algorithms will yield benefits in a large number of applications. In this thesis we examine the common tasks of image segmentation, edge and straight line detection and vectorisation. In the second area, robustness to dynamic and unpredictable conditions, we examine how vision systems can be made more tolerant to changes of illumination in the visual scene. We examine the classical image segmentation task and present a method for illumination independence that builds on our work from the first area. The third area is the reliance on domain-specific knowledge in object recognition. Many current systems depend on a large amount of hard-coded domainspecific knowledge to understand the world around them. This makes the system hard to modify, even for slight changes in the environment, and very difficult to apply in a different context entirely. We present an XML-based language, the XML Object Definition (XOD) language, as a solution to this problem. The language is largely descriptive instead of imperative so, instead of describing how to locate objects within each image, the developer simply describes the properties of the objects. The final area is the development of support tools. Vision system programming is extremely difficult because large amounts of data are handled at a very fast rate. If the system is running on an embedded device (such as a robot) then locating defects in the code is a time consuming and frustrating task. Many development-support applications are available for specific applications. We present a general purpose development-support tool for embedded, real-time vision systems. The primary case study for this research is that of Robotic soccer, in the international RoboCup Four-Legged league. We utilise all of the research of this thesis to provide the first illumination-independent object recognition system for RoboCup. Furthermore we illustrate the flexibility of our system by applying it to several other tasks and to marked changes in the visual environment for RoboCup itself.

O aumento no número de dispositivos móveis com crescente capacidade de processamento traz como incentivo o desenvolvimento de sistemas distribuídos que possam explorar estas novas tecnologias. Dentro dos sistemas distribuídos, os mecanismos que permitem a troca de dados entre os processos que o constituem, possuem um papel importante para o desempenho da aplicação. Uma abordagem interessante para implementar estes mecanismos é por meio do uso de middlewares. O middleware abstrai as funcionalidades básicas oferecidas pelo sistema operacional e hardware para oferecer serviços de alto nível aos desenvolvedores. Estes serviços permitem aos desenvolvedores se concentrarem somente na lógica interna de suas aplicações, reduzindo também seu custo de manutenção. Incentivado pela necessidade de um mecanismo que garantisse a troca de informações entre as unidades de um sistema autônomo para o gerenciamento de AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicle), desenvolvido pelo grupo de mecatrônica da Universidade de São Paulo, este trabalho propõe uma arquitetura de comunicação baseada em middlewares que é inspirada no paradigma de comunicação RMI (Remote Method Invocation) para suprir a troca de dados necessária por meio do conceito de objetos distribuídos. Para apresentar o uso da IDL (Interface Definition Language) disponibilizada pela arquitetura proposta, uma demonstração de como acrescentar novos serviços à arquitetura é descrita. Para avaliar o desempenho da arquitetura e analisar o comportamento dos serviços oferecidos, testes de tempo de resposta, throughput e disponibilidade foram realizados. Pode-se verificar que a arquitetura proposta, além de apresentar um desempenho satisfatório para a operação do sistema de AGVs, proporcionou uma estrutura que pode ser facilmente adaptada para futuras alterações no projeto sem modificar diretamente as definições da arquitetura de comunicação. / The increase in the process capacity of mobile devices has motivated the development of distributed applications that exploit new technologies. In distributed applications, the mechanisms that enable the exchange of data among the application processes play an important role in their performance. An interesting way to deal with such an exchange is to adopt middleware to handle communication. The middleware abstracts the functionalities provided by the underlying operational system and hardware and offers a set of high-level services, which assist developers in working directly with the logic of the application and reducing its maintenance costs. Motivated by the necessity of a mechanism that ensures the exchange of information among the units of an AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) system designed by the University of São Paulo, this dissertation develops a communication architecture based on middleware. The architecture is inspired in the RMI (Remote Method Invocation) paradigm to enable the data exchange based on the concept of distributed objects. An IDL (Interface Definition Language) was conceived for the architecture and a demonstration of how new services can be added to the structure was conducted. To validate the performance of the proposed middleware and its services, tests of network response time, throughput and availability were carried out. The architecture showed a satisfactory performance for the operation of the AGV system and provided a structure that can be easily adapted for future changes in the project.

O aumento no número de dispositivos móveis com crescente capacidade de processamento traz como incentivo o desenvolvimento de sistemas distribuídos que possam explorar estas novas tecnologias. Dentro dos sistemas distribuídos, os mecanismos que permitem a troca de dados entre os processos que o constituem, possuem um papel importante para o desempenho da aplicação. Uma abordagem interessante para implementar estes mecanismos é por meio do uso de middlewares. O middleware abstrai as funcionalidades básicas oferecidas pelo sistema operacional e hardware para oferecer serviços de alto nível aos desenvolvedores. Estes serviços permitem aos desenvolvedores se concentrarem somente na lógica interna de suas aplicações, reduzindo também seu custo de manutenção. Incentivado pela necessidade de um mecanismo que garantisse a troca de informações entre as unidades de um sistema autônomo para o gerenciamento de AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicle), desenvolvido pelo grupo de mecatrônica da Universidade de São Paulo, este trabalho propõe uma arquitetura de comunicação baseada em middlewares que é inspirada no paradigma de comunicação RMI (Remote Method Invocation) para suprir a troca de dados necessária por meio do conceito de objetos distribuídos. Para apresentar o uso da IDL (Interface Definition Language) disponibilizada pela arquitetura proposta, uma demonstração de como acrescentar novos serviços à arquitetura é descrita. Para avaliar o desempenho da arquitetura e analisar o comportamento dos serviços oferecidos, testes de tempo de resposta, throughput e disponibilidade foram realizados. Pode-se verificar que a arquitetura proposta, além de apresentar um desempenho satisfatório para a operação do sistema de AGVs, proporcionou uma estrutura que pode ser facilmente adaptada para futuras alterações no projeto sem modificar diretamente as definições da arquitetura de comunicação. / The increase in the process capacity of mobile devices has motivated the development of distributed applications that exploit new technologies. In distributed applications, the mechanisms that enable the exchange of data among the application processes play an important role in their performance. An interesting way to deal with such an exchange is to adopt middleware to handle communication. The middleware abstracts the functionalities provided by the underlying operational system and hardware and offers a set of high-level services, which assist developers in working directly with the logic of the application and reducing its maintenance costs. Motivated by the necessity of a mechanism that ensures the exchange of information among the units of an AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) system designed by the University of São Paulo, this dissertation develops a communication architecture based on middleware. The architecture is inspired in the RMI (Remote Method Invocation) paradigm to enable the data exchange based on the concept of distributed objects. An IDL (Interface Definition Language) was conceived for the architecture and a demonstration of how new services can be added to the structure was conducted. To validate the performance of the proposed middleware and its services, tests of network response time, throughput and availability were carried out. The architecture showed a satisfactory performance for the operation of the AGV system and provided a structure that can be easily adapted for future changes in the project.