Active gaze stabilization

Abstract

We describe a system for active stabilization of cameras mounted on highly dynamic robots. To focus on careful performance evaluation of the stabilization algorithm, we use a camera mounted on a robotic test platform that can have unknown perturbations in the horizontal plane, a commonly occurring scenario in mobile robotics. We show that the camera can be effectively stabilized using an inertial sensor and a single additional motor, without a joint position sensor. The algorithm uses an adaptive controller based on a model of the vertebrate Cerebellum for velocity stabilization, with additional drift correction. We have also developed a resolution adaptive retinal slip algorithm that is robust to motion blur.