Real-time obstacle detection using range images: processing dynamically-sized sliding windows on a GPU

Robotica ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Caio César Teodoro Mendes ◽  
Fernando Santos Osório ◽  
Denis Fernando Wolf

SUMMARYAn efficient obstacle detection technique is required so that navigating robots can avoid obstacles and potential hazards. This task is usually simplified by relying on structural patterns. However, obstacle detection constitutes a challenging problem in unstructured unknown environments, where such patterns may not exist. Talukder et al. (2002, IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, pp. 610–618.) successfully derived a method to deal with such environments. Nevertheless, the method has a high computational cost and researchers that employ it usually rely on approximations to achieve real-time. We hypothesize that by using a graphics processing unit (GPU), the computing time of the method can be significantly reduced. Throughout the implementation process, we developed a general framework for processing dynamically-sized sliding windows on a GPU. The framework can be applied to other problems that require similar computation. Experiments were performed with a stereo camera and an RGB-D sensor, where the GPU implementations were compared to multi-core and single-core CPU implementations. The results show a significant gain in the computational performance, i.e. in a particular instance, a GPU implementation is almost 90 times faster than a single-core one.

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
David Langerman ◽  
Alan George

High-resolution, low-latency apps in computer vision are ubiquitous in today’s world of mixed-reality devices. These innovations provide a platform that can leverage the improving technology of depth sensors and embedded accelerators to enable higher-resolution, lower-latency processing for 3D scenes using depth-upsampling algorithms. This research demonstrates that filter-based upsampling algorithms are feasible for mixed-reality apps using low-power hardware accelerators. The authors parallelized and evaluated a depth-upsampling algorithm on two different devices: a reconfigurable-logic FPGA embedded within a low-power SoC; and a fixed-logic embedded graphics processing unit. We demonstrate that both accelerators can meet the real-time requirements of 11 ms latency for mixed-reality apps. 1


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 03054
Author(s):  
Akshata Parab ◽  
Rashmi Nagare ◽  
Omkar Kolambekar ◽  
Parag Patil

Vision is one of the very essential human senses and it plays a major role in human perception about surrounding environment. But for people with visual impairment their definition of vision is different. Visually impaired people are often unaware of dangers in front of them, even in familiar environment. This study proposes a real time guiding system for visually impaired people for solving their navigation problem and to travel without any difficulty. This system will help the visually impaired people by detecting the objects and giving necessary information about that object. This information may include what the object is, its location, its precision, distance from the visually impaired etc. All these information will be conveyed to the person through audio commands so that they can navigate freely anywhere anytime with no or minimal assistance. Object detection is done using You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm. As the process of capturing the video/images and sending it to the main module has to be carried at greater speed, Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is used. This will help in enhancing the overall speed of the system and will help the visually Impaired to get the maximum necessary instructions as quickly as possible. The process starts from capturing the real time video, sending it for analysis and processing and get the calculated results. The results obtained from analysis are conveyed to user by means of hearing aid. As a result by this system the blind or the visually impaired people can visualize the surrounding environment and travel freely from source to destination on their own.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 1557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth K. C. Lee ◽  
Adrian Mariampillai ◽  
Joe X. Z. Yu ◽  
David W. Cadotte ◽  
Brian C. Wilson ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 87 (5) ◽  
pp. 363-373
Author(s):  
Long Chen ◽  
Bo Wu ◽  
Yao Zhao ◽  
Yuan Li

Real-time acquisition and analysis of three-dimensional (3D) human body kinematics are essential in many applications. In this paper, we present a real-time photogrammetric system consisting of a stereo pair of red-green-blue (RGB) cameras. The system incorporates a multi-threaded and graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated solution for real-time extraction of 3D human kinematics. A deep learning approach is adopted to automatically extract two-dimensional (2D) human body features, which are then converted to 3D features based on photogrammetric processing, including dense image matching and triangulation. The multi-threading scheme and GPU-acceleration enable real-time acquisition and monitoring of 3D human body kinematics. Experimental analysis verified that the system processing rate reached ∼18 frames per second. The effective detection distance reached 15 m, with a geometric accuracy of better than 1% of the distance within a range of 12 m. The real-time measurement accuracy for human body kinematics ranged from 0.8% to 7.5%. The results suggest that the proposed system is capable of real-time acquisition and monitoring of 3D human kinematics with favorable performance, showing great potential for various applications.


Author(s):  
Franz Pichler ◽  
Gundolf Haase

A finite element code is developed in which all of the computationally expensive steps are performed on a graphics processing unit via the THRUST and the PARALUTION libraries. The code focuses on the simulation of transient problems where the repeated computations per time-step create the computational cost. It is used to solve partial and ordinary differential equations as they arise in thermal-runaway simulations of automotive batteries. The speed-up obtained by utilizing the graphics processing unit for every critical step is compared against the single core and the multi-threading solutions which are also supported by the chosen libraries. This way a high total speed-up on the graphics processing unit is achieved without the need for programming a single classical Compute Unified Device Architecture kernel.


Author(s):  
Hui Huang ◽  
Jian Chen ◽  
Blair Carlson ◽  
Hui-Ping Wang ◽  
Paul Crooker ◽  
...  

Due to enormous computation cost, current residual stress simulation of multipass girth welds are mostly performed using two-dimensional (2D) axisymmetric models. The 2D model can only provide limited estimation on the residual stresses by assuming its axisymmetric distribution. In this study, a highly efficient thermal-mechanical finite element code for three dimensional (3D) model has been developed based on high performance Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) computers. Our code is further accelerated by considering the unique physics associated with welding processes that are characterized by steep temperature gradient and a moving arc heat source. It is capable of modeling large-scale welding problems that cannot be easily handled by the existing commercial simulation tools. To demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency, our code was compared with a commercial software by simulating a 3D multi-pass girth weld model with over 1 million elements. Our code achieved comparable solution accuracy with respect to the commercial one but with over 100 times saving on computational cost. Moreover, the three-dimensional analysis demonstrated more realistic stress distribution that is not axisymmetric in hoop direction.


2011 ◽  
Vol 110-116 ◽  
pp. 2740-2745
Author(s):  
Kirana Kumara P. ◽  
Ashitava Ghosal

Real-time simulation of deformable solids is essential for some applications such as biological organ simulations for surgical simulators. In this work, deformable solids are approximated to be linear elastic, and an easy and straight forward numerical technique, the Finite Point Method (FPM), is used to model three dimensional linear elastostatics. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is used to accelerate computations. Results show that the Finite Point Method, together with GPU, can compute three dimensional linear elastostatic responses of solids at rates suitable for real-time graphics, for solids represented by reasonable number of points.


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