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From: edith@ai.toronto.edu (Edith Fraser)
Subject: Eric Krotkov, 8 March 1990: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Message-ID: <90Feb22.161128est.6665@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Date: 22 Feb 90 21:12:44 GMT
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           Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
              (GB = Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street)

       -------------------------------------------------------------

                          ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
                    GB305, at 11:00 a.m., 8 March 1990

                               Eric Krotkov
                              Carnegie Mellon
                                 Edith Fraser

                           "CMU Planetary Rover:
            Perception for Navigation in Unstructured Terrain"

At Carnegie Mellon University, we are prototyping a legged vehicle called
the Ambler for an exploratory mission on another planet, conceivably Mars,
where it is to traverse uncharted areas and collect material samples.  This
talk will provide a brief overview of the project, and then will emphasize
the perception research, focusing on the following:

* Why perception of unstructured terrain poses unique
  difficulties that cause established computer vision techniques to fail.

* Algorithms to construct a geometric terrain map
  from a single range image and from long sequences of range images;

* New methods to evaluate regions of the constructed maps
  to select footholds and to plan trajectories;

* An "active perception" approach to identify material (non-geometric)
  properties of the terrain.

* Other techniques to support legged locomotion over rough terrain.