A Vision Program that teaches itself the game

[StevenB]

So, I'm a graduate student in electrical engineering, and have taken classes in machine learning, artificial intelligence, image processing, and computer vision. I've spent four summers in internships doing image processing with MATLAB and OpenCV.


Ok, I hesitate to call myself an expert, but I do know what I'm talking about.

Originally Posted by yash101

When you have tools such as Octave and MatLab, things like AI and ML become like, "How in the world did I implement this uber-complicated thing in just 3 lines of code?!". It is quite simple to use OpenCV and acquire data, such as target, robot position, etc.

I love MATLAB, and yes, it does let you do some pretty neat things with very little code. You can develop and prototype algorithms very quickly, and there seems to be a function for everything you want to do. I can't speak quite as highly of OpenCV, but it too allows you to quickly piece together a lot of computer vision building blocks to build new things. There are dozens of other great libraries out there too - stuff like ROS, VLFeat, PyML, and more.

But even with such great tools, I think you are radically underestimating the problem. Seriously, if you create a robot that can play Aerial Assist autonomously the way you're describing, you will have done enough innovative work to publish several papers and get a PhD.

I'm not saying this to discourage you. You've got a lot of passion and excitement, and a lot of great ideas, and I want to see something cool and innovative come out of it. You can do great work, and I look forward to seeing it. But I encourage you to focus your effort on a small piece of the problem. It may feel like a teeny, tiny, insignificant part. But unless you start with something small, it's hard to finish. I'm a dreamer by nature - like you, I have big ideas and grand plans, and I like to start new things. But too many of my projects have died shortly after I wrote down the grand vision, because I took on too much at once.

So, think about a small part of the problem, but also something you can get excited about.

• Program your robot to catch a ball thrown to it by a human. Use an onboard camera (looks like you've already got one on your bot) to track the trajectory of the ball, and have the robot drive into position to grab it.
• Place a series of traffic cones (or similar large bright objects) on your playing field. Make the robot chase down the ball and pick it up without knocking over any cones.
• Program your robot to automatically score the ball after picking it up a random distance from the goal, while avoiding traffic cones.
• Build the multi-camera system you described, and program the robot to play defense. A robot with red bumpers is trying to pick up a red ball. Your job is to stay between the red robot and the red ball.

These are all things that are doable in a summer, but to my knowledge, no team has done these. Pick one of these, or something similar, break it down into tiny tasks, and see what you can do. Ask questions, read papers, and write some code. With enough dedication, you'll come up with something really great, and I look forward to seeing it!

Originally Posted by yash101

This all can be accomplished by quite simple OpenCV + MatLab code!

Someone should go tell the RoboCup teams. They've been working on this for 15+ years.