Tele-Existence Vision System with Image Stabilization for Rescue Robots

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop an intuitive interface to control rescue robots. We propose a new image stabilization system for operating rescue robots easily. The use of teleoperated rescue robots is promising in searching for victims in rubble. In the rescue activities with such robots, operators control the robots remotely through images captured by cameras mounted on the robots. Since the orientation of the robots change rapidly while they move in rubble, image stabilization is necessary so the operators can search for victims without suffering from fatigue or motion sickness. However, robot orientation changes so much that conventional image stabilizing methods does not work. In this paper, we propose a new image stabilization system which cancels camera motion caused by such rapid changes of robot orientation on an uneven terrain. After a preliminary experiment, a 3-DOF camera system was designed based on the newly proposed mechanism. To verify the performance of the camera system, we conducted two experiments. The results of the experiments confirmed that the proposed mechanism shows good image stabilization and good tracking of commanded head motion.