Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Nobuo Higaki

Takamichi Shimada

Yoshiaki Sakagami

Naoaki Sumida

Shinichi Matsunaga

Takahiro Oohashi

Yuichi Yoshida

Kikuo Fujimura

Koji Kawabe

Sachie Hashimoto

Yoko Saito

Ryujin Watanabe

Kazunori Kanai

There is disclosed a mobile robot including an image processor that generates recognition information regarding a target object included in a taken image, and a main controller integrally controlling the robot based on this recognition information. The image processor executes steps of: generating a low-resolution image and at least one high-resolution image whose resolution higher than that of the low-resolution image; generating first target object information regarding the target object from the low-resolution image; determining which high-resolution image should be processed if two or more high-resolution images are generated, and then defining a resolution process region in the low-resolution image; processing a region in the high-resolution region corresponding to the resolution process region in the low-resolution image, so as to generate second target object information in the high-resolution image; and determining whether or not the first and the second target object information are matched; and based on this determination, using at least either of the first and the second target object information, thereby to generate the recognition information.

Mobile robot

In an exposure controller of a camera mounted on a robot for taking an image utilizing incident light from external world in which an object such as a human being is present, a brightness histogram of the image is generated and exposure parameters are set based on the generated histogram. Then, it is determined whether the set exposure parameters are within a predetermined range and when they are out of the range and if a high-brightness imaging region is present in the image due to high-brightness incident light, it is again determined whether it is necessary to remove the high-brightness imaging region. When it is determined to be necessary, the high-brightness imaging region is extracted and is removed from the image, thereby enabling the camera to image the object with suitable brightness even when a bright light source such as the sun is within the camera angle of view.

Camera exposure controller including imaging devices for capturing an image using stereo-imaging

A human being detection apparatus includes a moving object detecting part for detecting a target region from the picture image as a region of the moving object and a target distance as a distance to the moving object, a head region setting part for setting the head region corresponding to the target distance, a sample storing image part for storing a sample image having a predetermined size corresponding to the head region of the human being, and a human being determining part for determining whether or not the moving object is a human being by comparing the head region in the picture image converted to have a predetermined size with the sample image.

Human being detection apparatus, method of detecting human being, and human being detecting program

The control apparatus for a movable robot comprises: environment information acquisition means (such as video cameraand microphone); a current position detecting means (); a map storage (); a control parameter storage () for storing control parameters adjusted to different environments; and control means () for determining a current position of the robot on the map data based on a signal from the current position detecting means, retrieving control parameters suitable for the current position from the parameter storage, and controlling the environment information acquisition means or actuators for moving the robot by using the retrieved control parameters.

Robot device control based on environment and position of a movable robot

The invention provides a face region estimating device capable of extracting a person's face region even when an illumination environment, for example, is changed and persons with different skin colors are contained in a picked-up image taken by a camera. The face region estimating device includes: a mobile body detecting unit for extracting the outline of a mobile body from the picked-up image and for generating an object distance image composed of pixels corresponding to a distance in which the mobile body exists; a head region setting unit for setting a head region based on the pixel distribution in the object distance image corresponding to a predetermined range on the basis of a pixel position at the upper part of the outline; and a face region extracting unit for extracting the person's face region from the picked-up image based on the color distribution in the picked-up image corresponding to the head region.

Face region estimating device, face region estimating method, and face region estimating program

To automate the work of recognizing a guest, check the appointment, notify a host of the arrival of the guest and conduct the guest to a designated place, a robot having a function to autonomously travel is equipped with camera/microphone for recognizing a guest at least according to image information. The system comprises management database adapted to communicate with the robot and equipped with an information database for identifying the recognized guest, and identifies the guest according to the information obtained from the camera/microphone and management database. The robot recognizes the guest from the image thereof, and the recognized guest is identified and verified by comparing the image of the visitor with the information contained in the database so that the robot can automatically conduct the guest to the designated meeting room according to the information of the appointment stored in the database.

Receptionist robot system

In an event site or the like, a visitor may waste time and effort trying to find a spot where an event of interest may be taking place because the visitor is unable to look through the entire site from any particular spot. An information gathering robot roams in such an event site typically along a prescribed route, and notes spots of interest to transmit this information to a data server. The visitor can access the data server to find a spot of interest of his or her choice substantially on a real time basis.

Information gathering robot

A gesture recognition apparatus for recognizing postures or gestures of an object person based on images of the object person captured by cameras. The gesture recognition apparatus includes: a face/fingertip position detection means which detects a face position and a fingertip position of the object person in three-dimensional space based on contour information and human skin region information of the object person to be produced by the images captured; and a posture/gesture recognition means which operates to detect changes of the fingertip position by a predetermined method, to process the detected results by a previously stored method, to determine a posture or a gesture of the object person, and to recognize a posture or a gesture of the object person.

Gesture recognition apparatus, gesture recognition method, and gesture recognition program

An apparatusfor controlling a movable robot recognizes the person to be followed up from an image taken by a camera C by an image processing portion, controls leg portions Rof a movable robot A so as to keep a prescribed interval between the movable robot A and the person by a portionfor detecting an action, and notify the degree of the distance between the movable robot A and the person to the person by a voice from a voice outputting portion

Apparatus, process, and program for controlling movable robot control

To provide a contour extraction apparatus which can perform much more quickly the contour division when required while reducing the cost for computing. In contour extraction unit: a plurality of nodes are located on a periphery of the target object by the node locatorA; the contour, which is formed by connecting nodes at a predetermined connection order, is deformed by the contour deformation unitB; an internode distance about all combination of nodes excepting the inter node distance between adjacent nodes is computed by the internode distance calculatorC; it is checked by the connection creatorD whether or not the combination of nodes whose internode distance is below a first threshold value exists, a connection line to divide the contour is created, the connection line connects one of nodes in the combination with the node adjacent to the other node in the combination, and the node adjacent to the other node is the node being positioning upstream or downstream in the predetermined connection order with respect to the other node.

Contour extraction apparatus, contour extraction method, and contour extraction program

In a biped robot control system, stereoscopic images captured by CCD cameras are analyzed, the analyzed images are then utilized to detect presence of any moving object around the robot and if it present, to calculate moving object information, and based on the calculated moving object information, it is determined whether or not walking of the robot needs to be stopped. If it is determined to be stopped, the robot is controlled to stop within a period that brings the travel distance at stopping (distance moved between image capture by the CCD cameras and stopping of robot walking) to within a predetermined distance. With this, when the robot approaches a moving object during walking, it can be stopped within the predetermined distance to avoid collision with the moving object.

Biped robot control system

The present invention detects a moving object by generating the distance information of the moving object, detecting the object motion, determining the object distance, detecting the object image area and the object contour from the video image that includes the object image and contour, and provides a moving object detection apparatus to carry out such detection as well as detecting a contour of the specific moving object by detecting the center of the moving object in high precision.

Apparatus, method and program for moving object detection

A face identification apparatus for identifying a face is designed to have a face region expectation measure for expecting his/her face region within the image; a pupil-candidate-point detection measure for converting the face region to an image of a standard size, making it a standard image, and detecting his/her right/left pupil candidate points out of a search region within the standard image; a reference data generation measure for generating a normalization image from the standard image with making it a standard a distance of the right/left pupil candidate points and making reference data for evaluating advisability of the face region from the normalization image; and a face region evaluation measure for obtaining a degree of approximation between the reference data and standard data prepared in advance and evaluating the advisability of the face region.

Face identification apparatus, face identification method, and face identification program

A posture recognition apparatus recognizes instructions signified by postures of persons present in the surroundings, from images obtained with an image capture device. The posture recognition apparatus includes an outline extraction device that extracts an outline of a body which is a candidate for a person from the images; a distance calculation device that calculates a distance to the body being the candidate, from distance information of each pixel within the outline in the image; a search device that searches for a candidate for a hand of a person based on the outline and the distance to the body represented by the outline; and a posture determination device that determines an instruction corresponding to the relative position of the candidate for a hand and the outline, and outputs this determination result as a posture determination result.

Posture recognition apparatus and autonomous robot

A mobile apparatus is provided, which includes a plurality of imaging devices, a measurement device for measuring a current position and direction of the imaging devices, a map data storing section which stores map data including at least registered information on positions of stationary objects, a recognized distance calculating section which obtains a parallax for a plurality of images, a reference distance calculating section which calculates a reference distance from the imaging devices to a front border of each stationary object, a retracting section for determining a range of image processing, which selects a set of pixels to be processed so as to generate a retracted image, a detecting section for detecting objects from the retracted image, a transport device, and a transport controller for controlling movement of the transport device according to information about the objects detected by the detecting section.

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Wako, Japan

Nobuo Higaki