Improv and EyeBot real-time vision on-board mobile robots

On-board image processing for mobile robots provides a vast number of application possibilities in both research and practice. We are interested in the development of small, inexpensive mobile robot systems, incorporating on-board real-time vision systems. Currently, vision-based navigation for mobile robots requires either large robot systems, capable of carrying heavy computer systems, tethered systems, or wireless links to a host system, which computes the image data off-line. Our approach consists of the software tool Improv and the hardware/software robot vision module EyeBot. Improv is a PC-based interactive real-time design tool for image processing routines, and EyeBot is an extendable base platform for mobile robots.