Internship

A cable robot tracks using a biomimetic artificial eye

From : January 03rd, 2022 to June 30th, 2022

Following the example of the "spider-cam", already used in stadiums to film soccer or rugby players, our "laboratory on cables" device available at ISM is driven by cables, which are unwound or wound by motors in order to control the 3D position of a structure (end-effector). The mobile-end effector will embark an event-based camera (type DVS of Inivation) to ensure the localization and the follow-up of active (LEDs) or passive (patterns) targets.

Description

The robot will allow the DVS camera to be moved quickly, over a large volume and in safety. As such, the cable robot will allow to simulate the movement of a drone while avoiding collisions, which will also allow future autonomous aerial robots to navigate in cluttered environments. The intern will have to establish control laws adapted to the control of the eight motors placed at the eight corners of the room.

Desired profile

The intern will have to take control of the event-based camera development environment and use existing target tracking algorithms to compare their performance in a controlled laboratory environment.

The student will be supervised by two researchers for the piloting of the cable robot and the handling of the event-based camera.

Host institution

The Biorobotic Lab, headed by Dr. S. Viollet is a rare example of real transdisciplinary research department. For almost 30 years, this research group, composed of five permanent researchers, one electronic engineer, one micro-mechanic technician and 6 PhD students, has acquired strong skills in the study of the visual system of invertebrates (especially fly and bee) and their behavior and sensorimotor control feedback loops (such as optic flow regulation) which are hard-wired into their brains.
The team built a variety of analog and digital electronic circuits, including aVLSI prototypes, that realized visual motion sensor array and also built no-less than 8 wheeled and flying robots.