Low-order-complexity vision-based docking

This article reports on a reactive docking behavior which uses a vision algorithm that grows linearly with the number of image pixels. The docking robot imprints (initializes) on a twocolored docking ducial upon departing from the dock, then uses region statistics to adapt the color segmentation in changing lighting conditions. The docking behavior was implemented on a marsupial team of robots, where a daughter micro-rover had to re-enter the mother robot from an approach zone with a 2 meter radius and 140 angular width with a tolerance of 5 and 2cm. Testing during outdoor conditions (noon, dusk) and challenging indoor scenarios ( ashing lights) showed than using adaptation and imprinting was more robust than using imprinting alone. keywords: docking, arti cial intelligence, control, multi-agents, vision-based robotics