Kazumasa Yamazawa

About

Kazumasa Yamazawa is a pioneering researcher in omnidirectional computer vision and mobile robotics, best known for developing HyperOmni Vision — a groundbreaking image sensor that uses a hyperboloidal mirror to capture a complete 360-degree view of a robot's surroundings in real time. First introduced in the mid-1990s, this system became a foundational contribution to vision-based robot navigation, earning Yamazawa's 2002 paper on omnidirectional imaging with hyperboloidal projection over 214 citations, with related obstacle detection work accumulating an additional 107 citations. Yamazawa's research spans autonomous navigation, optical flow estimation for motion analysis, path following, and collision avoidance — demonstrating that a single omnidirectional sensor could replace complex multi-camera arrays. His work extended into telepresence and tele-robotics, exploring how omnidirectional imagery could create immersive remote environments and enable intuitive robot control. His autonomous guidance robot system, designed to escort users through spaces like museums, showcased the real-world applicability of his vision systems. With a sustained research trajectory from 1996 through the mid-2000s, Yamazawa's contributions have meaningfully shaped the fields of robot perception and autonomous navigation, making HyperOmni Vision a frequently referenced benchmark in omnidirectional sensing literature.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Omnidirectional imaging with hyperboloidal projection

   214 citations · 2002
2. 2
   Obstacle detection with omnidirectional image sensor HyperOmni Vision

   107 citations · 2002
3. 3
   Rolling motion estimation for mobile robot by using omnidirectional image sensor HyperOmniVision

   22 citations · 1996
4. 4
   Reactive Visual Navigation Based on Omnidirectional Sensing – Path Following and Collision Avoidance

   17 citations · 2001
5. 5
   HyperOmni vision: Visual navigation with an omnidirectional image sensor

   16 citations · 1997
6. 6
   Stabilization for mobile robot by using omnidirectional optical flow

   13 citations · 2002
7. 7
   Telepresence by real-time view-dependent image generation from omnidirectional images

   4 citations · 2000
8. 8
   Remote Control of a Networked Mobile Robot using an Immersive Locomotion Interface

   4 citations · 2006
9. 9
   Autonomous Guidance Robot System with Omnidirectional Image Sensor

   3 citations · 1997
10. 10
    Reactive Visual Navigation Based on Omnidirectional Sensing-Path Following and Collision Avoidance

    2 citations · 2001

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links