Real-time active vision with fault tolerance

Abstract

The active vision paradigm couples perception and action at several different levels. The effective use of active vision in complex robotic tasks requires that these levels operate both independently and cooperatively, reliably and in real-time. In this paper, we present a system for real-time active vision with fault tolerance. The system provides a vocabulary of active vision routines along with the means for composing the routines into continuously running perception-action processes. A novel architecture which enables the integration of the perceptive capabilities of real-time active vision with the active capabilities of other robotic devices is presented. We then enhance the architecture with a unified approach to fault tolerance and present results from experiments and simulations.