Designing Omnidirectional vision systems and inserting them in a Distributed Vision system for Mobile Robots

Multiple robot systems in which every robot is equipped with a vision sensor are more and more frequent. Most of these systems simply distribute the sensors in the environment, but they do not create a real Cooperative Distributed Vision System. Distributed Vision System has been studied in the past, but not enough emphasis has been posed on mobile robots. In this paper we propose an approach to realize a Cooperative Distributed Vision System within a team of heterogeneous mobile robots. We present the two research streams which we are working on, along with theoretical and practical insights. In the first part of the paper we provide a guideline for the design of an omnidirectional vision system. We report the design steps undertaken, with a detailed description of the design of an omnidirectional mirror with a custom profile. Afterward, we present the software written to exploit the properties of the designed mirror. The application for which the vision system has been designed is the self-localization of the robot and the localization of other robots and objects in the environment. Several practical tricks and suggestion are provided.