This paper presents a novel landmark generating method for robust multi-robot localization and tracking. Although the conventional approaches are able to generate a number of landmarks, they often tend to misjudge or ignore some landmark in particular environment. Analyzing those methods, we suggest the new landmark that is referred to here as Rotating Triangles (RT) landmark. RT landmark imple...

Route directions describe the sequence of actions a moving person needs to take to reach a goal in an environment. When generating directions, speakers not only specify what to do. They also refer to landmarks located along the route. We report two studies intended to identify the cognitive functions of landmarks. In the first study, participants learned a route in an urban environment. They th...

Twenty outpatients who fulfilled the criteria for a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 28 control participants were invited to learn a route through a complex outdoor environment. They were then tested in tasks intended to explore various aspects of their memorized representation of the navigational episode. Compared to controls, the patients showed significant impairment in both the verbal product...

Active Shape Models often require a considerable number of training samples and landmark points on each sample, in order to be efficient in practice. We introduce the Fractal Active Shape Models, an extension of Active Shape Models using fractal interpolation, in order to surmount these limitations. They require a considerably smaller number of landmark points to be determined and a smaller num...

Teams of humans and robots working together can provide effective solutions to problems. In such applications, effective human-robot teaming relies on being able to communicate information about the current perception or understanding of the environment. In this paper, human-robot teaming on navigational tasks is discussed. The role of the human user will be to specify the goal point(s) for the...

In this paper, we present a completely distributed relative positioning algorithm for wireless sensor networks that does not require any external infrastructure support in the form of landmark nodes or manual initialization. Our algorithm uses measured inter-node distances and localizes the entire network in a local coordinate system upto a global translation, rotation and reflection. We benchm...

This paper presents a model based approach to human body tracking in which the 2D silhouette of a moving human and the corresponding 3D skeletal structure are encapsulated within a non-linear point distribution model. This statistical model allows a direct mapping to be achieved between the external boundary of a human and the anatomical position. It is shown how this information, along with th...

A long standing debate within ecology is to what extent ecosystem complexity and stability are related. Landmark theoretical studies claimed that the more complex an ecosystem, the more unstable it is likely to be. Stability in an ecosystems context can be assessed in different ways. In this paper we measure stability in terms of a model ecosystem’s ability to regulate environmental conditions....

How do honeybees use visual odometry and goal-defining landmarks to guide food search? In one experiment, bees were trained to forage in an optic-flow-rich tunnel with a landmark positioned directly above the feeder. Subsequent food-search tests indicated that bees searched much more accurately when both odometric and landmark cues were available than when only odometry was available. When the ...

This paper presents a model based approach to human body tracking in which the 2D silhouette of a moving human and the corresponding 3D skeletal structure are encapsulated within a non-linear Point Distribution Model. This statistical model allows a direct mapping to be achieved between the external boundary of a human and the anatomical position. It is shown how this information, along with th...