Autonomous navigation for ground vehicles has many challenges. Autonomous systems must be able to self-localise, avoid obstacles and determine navigable surfaces. This thesis studies several aspects of autonomous navigation with a particular emphasis on vision, motivated by it being a primary component for navigation in many high-level biological organisms.  The key problem of self-localisation or pose estimation can be solved through analysis of the changes in appearance of rigid objects observed from different view points. We therefore describe a system for structure and motion estimation for real-time navigation and obstacle avoidance. With the explicit assumption of a calibrated camera, we have studied several schemes for increasing accuracy and speed of the estimation.The basis of most structure and motion pose estimation algorithms is a good point tracker. However point tracking is computationally expensive and can occupy a large portion of the CPU resources. In thisthesis we show how a point tracker can be implemented efficiently on the graphics processor, which results in faster tracking of points and the CPU being available to carry out additional processing tasks.In addition we propose a novel view interpolation approach, that can be used effectively for pose estimation given previously seen views. In this way, a vehicle will be able to estimate its location by interpolating previously seen data.Navigation and obstacle avoidance may be carried out efficiently using structure and motion, but only whitin a limited range from the camera. In order to increase this effective range, additional information needs to be incorporated, more specifically the location of objects in the image. For this, we propose a real-time object recognition method, which uses P-channel matching, which may be used for improving navigation accuracy at distances where structure estimation is unreliable. / Diplecs

Storm damages to forested environments pose significant challenges to landowners, land managers, and conservationists alike. Damage scope and scale assessments can be difficult, costly, and time consuming with conventional pedestrian survey techniques. Consumer grade sUAS technology offers an efficient, cost-effective way to accurately assess storm damage in small to moderate sized survey areas (less than 10 km²). Data were collected over a 0.195 km² area of damaged timber within the Kisatchie National Forest in Central Louisiana using a DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone. Collected imagery was processed into an orthomosaic using Agisoft Metashape Professional with a resulting ground sampling distance of 2.58 cm per pixel. Combined X and Y ground distance accuracy r was calculated as 1.39230 meters and a combined horizontal error was calculated as 0.810455526 meters. From the generated orthomosaic, the total storm damage area was estimated as 2.68 Ha, or 6.63 ac based on digitized polygon area calculations.

La reconstruction 3D monoculaire déformable est le problème général d'estimation de forme 3D d'un objet déformable à partir d'images 2D. Plusieurs scénarios ont émergé : le Shape-from-Template (SfT) et le Non-Rigid Structure-from-Motion (NRSfM) sont deux approches qui ont été grandement étudiées pour leur applicabilité. La première utilise une seule image qui montre un objet se déformant et un patron (une forme 3D texturée de l'objet dans une pose de référence). La seconde n'utilise pas de patron, mais utilise plusieurs images et estime la forme 3D dans chaque image. Les deux approches s'appuient sur le mouvement de points de correspondances entre les images et sur des a priori de déformations, restreignant ainsi leur utilisation à des surfaces texturées qui se déforment de manière lisse. Cette thèse fait avancer l'état de l'art du SfT et du NRSfM dans deux directions. La première est l'étude du SfT dans le cas de patrons 1D (c’est-à-dire des courbes comme des cordes et des câbles). La seconde direction est le développement d'algorithmes de SfT et de NRSfM qui exploitent plusieurs indices visuels et qui résolvent des cas réels et complexes non-résolus précédemment. Nous considérons des déformations isométriques et reconstruisons la partie extérieure de l'objet. Les contributions techniques et scientifiques de cette thèse sont divisées en quatre parties.La première partie de cette thèse étudie le SfT curvilinéaire, qui est le cas du patron curvilinéaire plongé dans un espace 2D ou 3D. Nous proposons une analyse théorique approfondie et des solutions pratiques pour le SfT curvilinéaire. Malgré son apparente simplicité, le SfT curvilinéaire s'est avéré être un problème complexe : il ne peut pas être résolu à l'aide de solutions locales non-holonomes d'une équation différentielle ordinaire et ne possède pas de solution unique, mais un nombre fini de solutions ambiguës. Une contribution technique majeure est un algorithme basé sur notre théorie, qui génère toutes les solutions ambiguës. La deuxième partie de cette thèse traite d'une limitation des méthodes de SfT : la reconstruction de plis. Cette limitation vient de la parcimonie de la contrainte de mouvement et de la régularisation. Nous proposons deux contributions qui s'appuient sur un cadre de minimisation d'énergie non-convexe. Tout d'abord, nous complétons la contrainte de mouvement avec une contrainte robuste de bord. Ensuite, nous modélisons implicitement les plis à l'aide d'une représentation dense de la surface basée maillage et d'une contrainte robuste de lissage qui désactive automatiquement le lissage de la courbure sans connaître a priori la position des plis.La troisième partie de cette thèse est dédiée à une autre limitation du SfT : la reconstruction de surfaces peu texturées. Cette limitation vient de la difficulté d'obtenir des correspondances (parcimonieuses ou denses) sur des surfaces peu texturées. Comme l'ombrage révèle les détails sur des surfaces peu texturées, nous proposons de combiner l'ombrage avec le SfT. Nous présentons deux contributions. La première est une initialisation en cascade qui estime séquentiellement la déformation de la surface, l'illumination de la scène, la réponse de la caméra et enfin les albédos de la surface à partir d'images monoculaires où la surface se déforme. La seconde est l'intégration de l'ombrage à notre précédent cadre de minimisation d'énergie afin de raffiner simultanément les paramètres photométriques et de déformation.La dernière partie de cette thèse relâche la connaissance du patron et aborde deux limitations du NRSfM : la reconstruction de surfaces peu texturées avec des plis. Une contribution majeure est l'extension du second cadre d'optimisation pour la reconstruction conjointe de la forme 3D de la surface sur toutes les images d'entrée et des albédos de la surface sans en connaître un patron. / Monocular deformable 3D reconstruction is the general problem of recovering the 3D shape of a deformable object from monocular 2D images. Several scenarios have emerged: the Shape-from-Template (SfT) and the Non-Rigid Structure-from-Motion (NRSfM) are two approaches intensively studied for their practicability. The former uses a single image depicting the deforming object and a template (a textured 3D shape of this object in a reference pose). The latter does not use a template, but uses several images and recovers the 3D shape in each image. Both approaches rely on the motion of correspondences between the images and deformation priors, which restrict their use to well-textured surfaces which deform smoothly. This thesis advances the state-of-the-art in SfT and NRSfM in two main directions. The first direction is to study SfT for the case of 1D templates (i.e. curved, thin structures such as ropes and cables). The second direction is to develop algorithms in SfT and NRSfM that exploit multiple visual cues and can solve complex, real-world cases which were previously unsolved. We focus on isometric deformations and reconstruct the outer part of the object. The technical and scientific contributions of this thesis are divided into four parts. The first part of this thesis studies the case of a curvilinear template embedded in 2D or 3D space, referred to Curve SfT. We propose a thorough theoretical analysis and practical solutions for Curve SfT. Despite its apparent simplicity, Curve SfT appears to be a complex problem: it cannot be solved locally using exact non-holonomic partial differential equation and is only solvable up to a finite number of ambiguous solutions. A major technical contribution is a computational solution based on our theory, which generates all the ambiguous solutions.The second part of this thesis deals with a limitation of SfT methods: reconstructing creases. This is due to the sparsity of the motion constraint and regularization. We propose two contributions which rely on a non-convex energy minimization framework. First, we complement the motion constraint with a robust boundary contour constraint. Second, we implicitly model creases with a dense mesh-based surface representation and an associated robust smoothing constraint, which deactivates curvature smoothing automatically where needed, without knowing a priori the crease location. The third part of this thesis is dedicated to another limitation of SfT: reconstructing poorly-textured surfaces. This is due to correspondences which cannot be obtained so easily on poorly-textured surfaces (either sparse or dense). As shading reveals details on poorly-textured surfaces, we propose to combine shading and SfT. We have two contributions. The first is a cascaded initialization which estimates sequentially the surface's deformation, the scene illumination, the camera response and then the surface albedos from deformed monocular images. The second is to integrate shading to our previous energy minimization framework for simultaneously refining deformation and photometric parameters.The last part of this thesis relaxes the knowledge of the template and addresses two limitations of NRSfM: reconstructing poorly-textured surfaces with creases. Our major contribution is an extension of the second framework to recover jointly the 3D shapes of all input images and the surface albedos without any template.

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Konzeptionierung und Entwicklung eines neuartigen Fahrerassistenzsystems für Nutzfahrzeuge, welches die lichte Höhe von vor dem Fahrzeug befindlichen Hindernissen berechnet und über einen Abgleich mit der einstellbaren Fahrzeughöhe die Passierbarkeit bestimmt. Dabei werden die von einer Monokamera aufgenommenen Bildsequenzen genutzt, um durch indirekte und direkte Rekonstruktionsverfahren ein 3D-Abbild der Fahrumgebung zu erschaffen. Unter Hinzunahme einer Radodometrie-basierten Eigenbewegungsschätzung wird die erstellte 3D-Repräsentation skaliert und eine Prädiktion der longitudinalen und lateralen Fahrzeugbewegung ermittelt. Basierend auf dem vertikalen Höhenplan der Straßenoberfläche, welcher über die Aneinanderreihung mehrerer Ebenen modelliert wird, erfolgt die Klassifizierung des 3D-Raums in Fahruntergrund, Struktur und potentielle Hindernisse. Die innerhalb des Fahrschlauchs liegenden Hindernisse werden hinsichtlich ihrer Entfernung und Höhe bewertet. Ein daraus abgeleitetes Warnkonzept dient der optisch-akustischen Signalisierung des Hindernisses im Kombiinstrument des Fahrzeugs. Erfolgt keine entsprechende Reaktion durch den Fahrer, so wird bei kritischen Hindernishöhen eine Notbremsung durchgeführt. Die geschätzte Eigenbewegung und berechneten Hindernisparameter werden mithilfe von Referenzsensorik bewertet. Dabei kommt eine dGPS-gestützte Inertialplattform sowie ein terrestrischer und mobiler Laserscanner zum Einsatz. Im Rahmen der Arbeit werden verschiedene Umgebungssituationen und Hindernistypen im urbanen und ländlichen Raum untersucht und Aussagen zur Genauigkeit und Zuverlässigkeit des Verfahrens getroffen. Ein wesentlicher Einflussfaktor auf die Dichte und Genauigkeit der 3D-Rekonstruktion ist eine gleichmäßige Umgebungsbeleuchtung innerhalb der Bildsequenzaufnahme. Es wird in diesem Zusammenhang zwingend auf den Einsatz einer Automotive-tauglichen Kamera verwiesen. Die durch die Radodometrie bestimmte Eigenbewegung eignet sich im langsamen Geschwindigkeitsbereich zur Skalierung des 3D-Punktraums. Dieser wiederum sollte durch eine Kombination aus indirektem und direktem Punktrekonstruktionsverfahren erstellt werden. Der indirekte Anteil stützt dabei die Initialisierung des Verfahrens zum Start der Funktion und ermöglicht eine robuste Kameraschätzung. Das direkte Verfahren ermöglicht die Rekonstruktion einer hohen Anzahl an 3D-Punkten auf den Hindernisumrissen, welche zumeist die Unterkante beinhalten. Die Unterkante kann in einer Entfernung bis zu 20 m detektiert und verfolgt werden. Der größte Einflussfaktor auf die Genauigkeit der Berechnung der lichten Höhe von Hindernissen ist die Modellierung des Fahruntergrunds. Zur Reduktion von Ausreißern in der Höhenberechnung eignet sich die Stabilisierung des Verfahrens durch die Nutzung von zeitlich vorher zur Verfügung stehenden Berechnungen. Als weitere Maßnahme zur Stabilisierung wird zudem empfohlen die Hindernisausgabe an den Fahrer und den automatischen Notbremsassistenten mittels einer Hysterese zu stützen. Das hier vorgestellte System eignet sich für Park- und Rangiervorgänge und ist als kostengünstiges Fahrerassistenzsystem interessant für Pkw mit Aufbauten und leichte Nutzfahrzeuge. / The present work deals with the conception and development of a novel advanced driver assistance system for commercial vehicles, which estimates the clearance height of obstacles in front of the vehicle and determines the passability by comparison with the adjustable vehicle height. The image sequences captured by a mono camera are used to create a 3D representation of the driving environment using indirect and direct reconstruction methods. The 3D representation is scaled and a prediction of the longitudinal and lateral movement of the vehicle is determined with the aid of a wheel odometry-based estimation of the vehicle's own movement. Based on the vertical elevation plan of the road surface, which is modelled by attaching several surfaces together, the 3D space is classified into driving surface, structure and potential obstacles. The obstacles within the predicted driving tube are evaluated with regard to their distance and height. A warning concept derived from this serves to visually and acoustically signal the obstacle in the vehicle's instrument cluster. If the driver does not respond accordingly, emergency braking will be applied at critical obstacle heights. The estimated vehicle movement and calculated obstacle parameters are evaluated with the aid of reference sensors. A dGPS-supported inertial measurement unit and a terrestrial as well as a mobile laser scanner are used. Within the scope of the work, different environmental situations and obstacle types in urban and rural areas are investigated and statements on the accuracy and reliability of the implemented function are made. A major factor influencing the density and accuracy of 3D reconstruction is uniform ambient lighting within the image sequence. In this context, the use of an automotive camera is mandatory. The inherent motion determined by wheel odometry is suitable for scaling the 3D point space in the slow speed range. The 3D representation however, should be created by a combination of indirect and direct point reconstruction methods. The indirect part supports the initialization phase of the function and enables a robust camera estimation. The direct method enables the reconstruction of a large number of 3D points on the obstacle outlines, which usually contain the lower edge. The lower edge can be detected and tracked up to 20 m away. The biggest factor influencing the accuracy of the calculation of the clearance height of obstacles is the modelling of the driving surface. To reduce outliers in the height calculation, the method can be stabilized by using calculations from older time steps. As a further stabilization measure, it is also recommended to support the obstacle output to the driver and the automatic emergency brake assistant by means of hysteresis. The system presented here is suitable for parking and maneuvering operations and is interesting as a cost-effective driver assistance system for cars with superstructures and light commercial vehicles.

This work aims at providing a novel camera motion estimation pipeline from large collections of unordered omnidirectional images. In oder to keep the pipeline as general and flexible as possible, cameras are modelled as unit spheres, allowing to incorporate any central camera type. For each camera an unprojection lookup is generated from intrinsics, which is called P2S-map (Pixel-to-Sphere-map), mapping pixels to their corresponding positions on the unit sphere. Consequently the camera geometry becomes independent of the underlying projection model. The pipeline also generates P2S-maps from world map projections with less distortion effects as they are known from cartography. Using P2S-maps from camera calibration and world map projection allows to convert omnidirectional camera images to an appropriate world map projection in oder to apply standard feature extraction and matching algorithms for data association. The proposed estimation pipeline combines the flexibility of SfM (Structure from Motion) - which handles unordered image collections - with the efficiency of PGO (Pose Graph Optimization), which is used as back-end in graph-based Visual SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) approaches to optimize camera poses from large image sequences. SfM uses BA (Bundle Adjustment) to jointly optimize camera poses (motion) and 3d feature locations (structure), which becomes computationally expensive for large-scale scenarios. On the contrary PGO solves for camera poses (motion) from measured transformations between cameras, maintaining optimization managable. The proposed estimation algorithm combines both worlds. It obtains up-to-scale transformations between image pairs using two-view constraints, which are jointly scaled using trifocal constraints. A pose graph is generated from scaled two-view transformations and solved by PGO to obtain camera motion efficiently even for large image collections. Obtained results can be used as input data to provide initial pose estimates for further 3d reconstruction purposes e.g. to build a sparse structure from feature correspondences in an SfM or SLAM framework with further refinement via BA. The pipeline also incorporates fixed extrinsic constraints from multi-camera setups as well as depth information provided by RGBD sensors. The entire camera motion estimation pipeline does not need to generate a sparse 3d structure of the captured environment and thus is called SCME (Structureless Camera Motion Estimation).:1 Introduction 1.1 Motivation 1.1.1 Increasing Interest of Image-Based 3D Reconstruction 1.1.2 Underground Environments as Challenging Scenario 1.1.3 Improved Mobile Camera Systems for Full Omnidirectional Imaging 1.2 Issues 1.2.1 Directional versus Omnidirectional Image Acquisition 1.2.2 Structure from Motion versus Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping 1.3 Contribution 1.4 Structure of this Work 2 Related Work 2.1 Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping 2.1.1 Visual Odometry 2.1.2 Pose Graph Optimization 2.2 Structure from Motion 2.2.1 Bundle Adjustment 2.2.2 Structureless Bundle Adjustment 2.3 Corresponding Issues 2.4 Proposed Reconstruction Pipeline 3 Cameras and Pixel-to-Sphere Mappings with P2S-Maps 3.1 Types 3.2 Models 3.2.1 Unified Camera Model 3.2.2 Polynomal Camera Model 3.2.3 Spherical Camera Model 3.3 P2S-Maps - Mapping onto Unit Sphere via Lookup Table 3.3.1 Lookup Table as Color Image 3.3.2 Lookup Interpolation 3.3.3 Depth Data Conversion 4 Calibration 4.1 Overview of Proposed Calibration Pipeline 4.2 Target Detection 4.3 Intrinsic Calibration 4.3.1 Selected Examples 4.4 Extrinsic Calibration 4.4.1 3D-2D Pose Estimation 4.4.2 2D-2D Pose Estimation 4.4.3 Pose Optimization 4.4.4 Uncertainty Estimation 4.4.5 PoseGraph Representation 4.4.6 Bundle Adjustment 4.4.7 Selected Examples 5 Full Omnidirectional Image Projections 5.1 Panoramic Image Stitching 5.2 World Map Projections 5.3 World Map Projection Generator for P2S-Maps 5.4 Conversion between Projections based on P2S-Maps 5.4.1 Proposed Workflow 5.4.2 Data Storage Format 5.4.3 Real World Example 6 Relations between Two Camera Spheres 6.1 Forward and Backward Projection 6.2 Triangulation 6.2.1 Linear Least Squares Method 6.2.2 Alternative Midpoint Method 6.3 Epipolar Geometry 6.4 Transformation Recovery from Essential Matrix 6.4.1 Cheirality 6.4.2 Standard Procedure 6.4.3 Simplified Procedure 6.4.4 Improved Procedure 6.5 Two-View Estimation 6.5.1 Evaluation Strategy 6.5.2 Error Metric 6.5.3 Evaluation of Estimation Algorithms 6.5.4 Concluding Remarks 6.6 Two-View Optimization 6.6.1 Epipolar-Based Error Distances 6.6.2 Projection-Based Error Distances 6.6.3 Comparison between Error Distances 6.7 Two-View Translation Scaling 6.7.1 Linear Least Squares Estimation 6.7.2 Non-Linear Least Squares Optimization 6.7.3 Comparison between Initial and Optimized Scaling Factor 6.8 Homography to Identify Degeneracies 6.8.1 Homography for Spherical Cameras 6.8.2 Homography Estimation 6.8.3 Homography Optimization 6.8.4 Homography and Pure Rotation 6.8.5 Homography in Epipolar Geometry 7 Relations between Three Camera Spheres 7.1 Three View Geometry 7.2 Crossing Epipolar Planes Geometry 7.3 Trifocal Geometry 7.4 Relation between Trifocal, Three-View and Crossing Epipolar Planes 7.5 Translation Ratio between Up-To-Scale Two-View Transformations 7.5.1 Structureless Determination Approaches 7.5.2 Structure-Based Determination Approaches 7.5.3 Comparison between Proposed Approaches 8 Pose Graphs 8.1 Optimization Principle 8.2 Solvers 8.2.1 Additional Graph Solvers 8.2.2 False Loop Closure Detection 8.3 Pose Graph Generation 8.3.1 Generation of Synthetic Pose Graph Data 8.3.2 Optimization of Synthetic Pose Graph Data 9 Structureless Camera Motion Estimation 9.1 SCME Pipeline 9.2 Determination of Two-View Translation Scale Factors 9.3 Integration of Depth Data 9.4 Integration of Extrinsic Camera Constraints 10 Camera Motion Estimation Results 10.1 Directional Camera Images 10.2 Omnidirectional Camera Images 11 Conclusion 11.1 Summary 11.2 Outlook and Future Work Appendices A.1 Additional Extrinsic Calibration Results A.2 Linear Least Squares Scaling A.3 Proof Rank Deficiency A.4 Alternative Derivation Midpoint Method A.5 Simplification of Depth Calculation A.6 Relation between Epipolar and Circumferential Constraint A.7 Covariance Estimation A.8 Uncertainty Estimation from Epipolar Geometry A.9 Two-View Scaling Factor Estimation: Uncertainty Estimation A.10 Two-View Scaling Factor Optimization: Uncertainty Estimation A.11 Depth from Adjoining Two-View Geometries A.12 Alternative Three-View Derivation A.12.1 Second Derivation Approach A.12.2 Third Derivation Approach A.13 Relation between Trifocal Geometry and Alternative Midpoint Method A.14 Additional Pose Graph Generation Examples A.15 Pose Graph Solver Settings A.16 Additional Pose Graph Optimization Examples Bibliography

Cette thèse porte sur le développement d'outils permettant le recalage d'images d'une surface déformable et la reconstruction tridimensionnelle de surfaces déformables à partir d'images prises par une seule caméra. Les surfaces que nous souhaitons traiter sont typiquement un visage ou une feuille de papier. Ces problématiques sont mal posées lorsque seule l'information présente dans les images est exploitée. Des informations a priori sur les déformations physiquement admissibles de la surface observée doivent être définies. Elles diffèrent en fonction du problème étudié. Par exemple, pour une feuille de papier, la courbure Gaussienne évaluée en chacun de ces points est nulle, cette propriété n'est pas valide pour un visage. Les applications visées sont l'insertion réaliste de logo 2D, de texte et aussi d'objets virtuels 3D dans des vidéos présentant une surface déformable. La première partie de cette thèse est consacrée au recalage d'images par modèles déformables. Après avoir brièvement introduit les notions de base sur les fonctions de déformation et sur leur estimation à partir de données images, nous donnons deux contributions. La première est un algorithme de recalage d'images d'une surface déformable, qui est efficace en terme de temps de calcul. Nous proposons une paramétrisation par primitives des fonctions de déformation permettant alors leur estimation par des algorithmes compositionnels habituellement réservés aux transformations formant un groupe. La deuxième contribution est la modélisation explicite des auto-occultations, en imposant la contraction de la fonction de déformation le long de la frontière d'auto-occultation. La deuxième partie de cette thèse aborde le problème de la reconstruction tridimensionnelle monoculaire de surfaces déformables. Nous nous basons sur le modèle de faible rang : les déformations sont approximées par une combinaison linéaire de modes de déformation inconnus. Nous supposons que ces derniers sont ordonnés par importance en terme d'amplitude de déformation capturée dans les images. Il en résulte une estimation hiérarchique des modes, facilitant l'emploi d'un modèle de caméra perspectif, la sélection automatique du nombre de modes et réduisant certaines ambiguïtés inhérentes au modèle. Nous explorons finalement la capture des déformations d'une surface peu texturée à partir de données issues d'un capteur 3D. L'information présente au niveau des contours de la surface est notamment utilisée. Nous avons implanté les différentes contributions décrites ci-dessous. Elles sont testées et comparées à l'état de l'art sur des données réelles et synthétiques. Les résultats sont présentés tout au long du tapuscrit.

Ce mémoire décrit mes travaux de thèse de doctorat menés au sein de l’équipe ComSee (Computers that See) rattachée à l’axe ISPR (Image, Systèmes de Perception et Robotique) de l’Institut Pascal. Celle-ci a été financée par la Région Auvergne et le Fonds Européen de Développement Régional. Les travaux présentés s’inscrivent dans le cadre d’applications de localisation pour la robotique mobile et la Réalité Augmentée. Le framework réalisé au cours de cette thèse est une approche générique pour l’implémentation d’applications de SLAM : Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (algorithme de localisation par rapport à un modèle simultanément reconstruit). L’approche intègre une multitude de contraintes dans les processus de localisation et de reconstruction. Ces contraintes proviennent de données capteurs mais également d’a priori liés au contexte applicatif. Chaque contrainte est utilisée au sein d’un même algorithme d’optimisation afin d’améliorer l’estimation du mouvement ainsi que la précision du modèle reconstruit. Trois problèmes ont été abordés au cours de ce travail. Le premier concerne l’utilisation de contraintes sur le modèle reconstruit pour l’estimation précise d’objets 3D partiellement connus et présents dans l’environnement. La seconde problématique traite de la fusion de données multi-capteurs, donc hétérogènes et asynchrones, en utilisant un unique algorithme d’optimisation. La dernière problématique concerne la génération automatique et efficace d’algorithmes d’optimisation à contraintes multiples. L’objectif est de proposer une solution temps réel 1 aux problèmes de SLAM à contraintes multiples. Une approche générique est utilisée pour concevoir le framework afin de gérer une multitude de configurations liées aux différentes contraintes des problèmes de SLAM. Un intérêt tout particulier a été porté à la faible consommation de ressources (mémoire et CPU) tout en conservant une grande portabilité. De plus, la méta-programmation est utilisée pour générer automatiquement et spécifiquement les parties les plus complexes du code en fonction du problème à résoudre. La bibliothèque d’optimisation LMA qui a été développée au cours de cette thèse est mise à disposition de la communauté en open-source. Des expérimentations sont présentées à la fois sur des données de synthèse et des données réelles. Un comparatif exhaustif met en évidence les performances de la bibliothèque LMA face aux alternatives les plus utilisées de l’état de l’art. De plus, le framework de SLAM est utilisé sur des problèmes impliquant une difficulté et une quantité de contraintes croissantes. Les applications de robotique mobile et de Réalité Augmentée mettent en évidence des performances temps réel et un niveau de précision qui croît avec le nombre de contraintes utilisées. / This report describes my thesis work conducted within the ComSee (Computers That See) team related to the ISPR axis (ImageS, Perception Systems and Robotics) of Institut Pascal. It was financed by the Auvergne Région and the European Fund of Regional Development. The thesis was motivated by localization issues related to Augmented Reality and autonomous navigation. The framework developed during this thesis is a generic approach to implement SLAM algorithms : Simultaneous Localization And Mapping. The proposed approach use multiple constraints in the localization and mapping processes. Those constraints come from sensors data and also from knowledge given by the application context. Each constraint is used into one optimization algorithm in order to improve the estimation of the motion and the accuracy of the map. Three problems have been tackled. The first deals with constraints on the map to accurately estimate the pose of 3D objects partially known in the environment. The second problem is about merging multiple heterogeneous and asynchronous data coming from different sensors using an optimization algorithm. The last problem is to write an efficient and real-time implementation of the SLAM problem using multiple constraints. A generic approach is used to design the framework and to generate different configurations, according to the constraints, of each SLAM problem. A particular interest has been put in the low computational requirement (in term of memory and CPU) while offering a high portability. Moreover, meta-programming techniques have been used to automatically and specifically generate the more complex parts of the code according to the given problem. The optimization library LMA, developed during this thesis, is made available of the community in open-source. Several experiments were done on synthesis and real data. An exhaustive benchmark shows the performances of the LMA library compared to the most used alternatives of the state of the art. Moreover, the SLAM framework is used on different problems with an increasing difficulty and amount of constraints. Augmented Reality and autonomous navigation applications show the good performances and accuracies in multiple constraints context.

En aquesta tesi s’estudia el problema de la segmentació del moviment. La tesi presenta una revisió dels principals algoritmes de segmentació del moviment, s’analitzen les característiques principals i es proposa una classificació de les tècniques més recents i importants. La segmentació es pot entendre com un problema d’agrupament d’espais (manifold clustering). Aquest estudi aborda alguns dels reptes més difícils de la segmentació de moviment a través l’agrupament d’espais. S’han proposat nous algoritmes per a l’estimació del rang de la matriu de trajectòries, s’ha presenta una mesura de similitud entre subespais, s’han abordat problemes relacionats amb el comportament dels angles canònics i s’ha desenvolupat una eina genèrica per estimar quants moviments apareixen en una seqüència. L´ultima part de l’estudi es dedica a la correcció de l’estimació inicial d’una segmentació. Aquesta correcció es du a terme ajuntant els problemes de la segmentació del moviment i de l’estructura a partir del moviment. / IN THIS STUDY THE PROBLEM OF MOTION SEGMENTATION IS DISCUSSED. MOTION SEGMENTATION STATE OF THE ART IS PRESENTED, THE MAIN FEATURES OF MOTION SEGMENTATION ALGORITHMS ARE ANALYSED, AND A CLASSIFICATION OF THE RECENT AND MOST IMPORTANT TECHNIQUES IS PROPOSED. THE SEGMENTATION PROBLEM COULD BE CAST INTO A MANIFOLD CLUSTERING PROBLEM. IN THIS STUDY SOME OF THE MOST CHALLENGING ISSUES RELATED TO MOTION SEGMENTATION VIA MANIFOLD CLUSTERING ARE TACKLED. NEW ALGORITHMS FOR THE RANK ESTIMATION OF THE TRAJECTORY MATRIX ARE PROPOSED. A MEASURE OF SIMILARITY BETWEEN SUBSPACES IS PRESENTED. THE BEHAVIOUR OF PRINCIPAL ANGLES IS DISCUSSED. A GENERIC TOOL FOR THE ESTIMATION OF THE NUMBER OF MOTIONS IS DEVELOPED. THE LAST PART OF THE STUDY IS DEDICATED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ALGORITHM FOR THE CORRECTION OF AN INITIAL MOTION SEGMENTATION SOLUTION. SUCH A CORRECTION IS ACHIEVED BY BRINGING TOGETHER THE PROBLEMS OF MOTION SEGMENTATION AND STRUCTURE FROM MOTION.

To navigate successfully in a previously unexplored environment, a mobile robot must be able to estimate the spatial relationships of the objects of interest accurately. A Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) sys- tem employs its sensors to build incrementally a map of its surroundings and to localize itself in the map simultaneously. The aim of this research project is to develop a SLAM system suitable for self propelled household lawnmowers. The proposed bearing-only SLAM system requires only an omnidirec- tional camera and some inexpensive landmarks. The main advantage of an omnidirectional camera is the panoramic view of all the landmarks in the scene. Placing landmarks in a lawn field to define the working domain is much easier and more flexible than installing the perimeter wire required by existing autonomous lawnmowers. The common approach of existing bearing-only SLAM methods relies on a motion model for predicting the robot’s pose and a sensor model for updating the pose. In the motion model, the error on the estimates of object positions is cumulated due mainly to the wheel slippage. Quantifying accu- rately the uncertainty of object positions is a fundamental requirement. In bearing-only SLAM, the Probability Density Function (PDF) of landmark position should be uniform along the observed bearing. Existing methods that approximate the PDF with a Gaussian estimation do not satisfy this uniformity requirement. This thesis introduces both geometric and proba- bilistic methods to address the above problems. The main novel contribu- tions of this thesis are: 1. A bearing-only SLAM method not requiring odometry. The proposed method relies solely on the sensor model (landmark bearings only) without relying on the motion model (odometry). The uncertainty of the estimated landmark positions depends on the vision error only, instead of the combination of both odometry and vision errors. 2. The transformation of the spatial uncertainty of objects. This thesis introduces a novel method for translating the spatial un- certainty of objects estimated from a moving frame attached to the robot into the global frame attached to the static landmarks in the environment. 3. The characterization of an improved PDF for representing landmark position in bearing-only SLAM. The proposed PDF is expressed in polar coordinates, and the marginal probability on range is constrained to be uniform. Compared to the PDF estimated from a mixture of Gaussians, the PDF developed here has far fewer parameters and can be easily adopted in a probabilistic framework, such as a particle filtering system. The main advantages of our proposed bearing-only SLAM system are its lower production cost and flexibility of use. The proposed system can be adopted in other domestic robots as well, such as vacuum cleaners or robotic toys when terrain is essentially 2D.

Recently, sensors such as radars and cameras have been widely used in automotives, especially in Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), to collect information about the vehicle's surroundings. Stereo cameras are very popular as they could be used passively to construct a 3D representation of the scene in front of the car. This allowed the development of several ADAS algorithms that need 3D information to perform their tasks. One interesting application is Road Surface Preview (RSP) where the task is to estimate the road height along the future path of the vehicle. An active suspension control unit can then use this information to regulate the suspension, improving driving comfort, extending the durabilitiy of the vehicle and warning the driver about potential risks on the road surface. Stereo cameras have been successfully used in RSP and have demonstrated very good performance. However, the main disadvantages of stereo cameras are their high production cost and high power consumption. This limits installing several ADAS features in economy-class vehicles. A less expensive alternative are monocular cameras which have a significantly lower cost and power consumption. Therefore, this thesis investigates the possibility of solving the Road Surface Preview task using a monocular camera. We try two different approaches: structure-from-motion and Convolutional Neural Networks.The proposed methods are evaluated against the stereo-based system. Experiments show that both structure-from-motion and CNNs have a good potential for solving the problem, but they are not yet reliable enough to be a complete solution to the RSP task and be used in an active suspension control unit.