An Unmanned Ground Vehicles Experimental Setup for Image-Based Object Tracking

This paper presents a practical design of a visual servoing algorithm for mobile robots. The algorithm, implemented in mobile robots equipped with a camera, facilitates to detect and follow a specific object autonomously. The proposed scheme infers information directly from the images obtained by the camera, and then digital signal processing techniques are implemented in order to detect the object of interest and to generate the necessary movements of the robot in order to perform the tracking task. The algorithm provides effective performance when using images of objects that have well known characteristics, e.g., color and the size. Experimental results obtained with omnidirectional mobile robot performing indoors show that the proposed methodology allows locating and following a specific object by using the proposed image-based visual servoing control.