DeMaMech: EU-Japan Collaboration in Higher Education Student Exchange Program

Offer of Research Topic (Example)

Offer from	University	Osaka University
	Faculty/Department/Institute	Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering
	Group Name	Active Intelligent Systems
Research Theme		Road recognition for autonomous driving
Brief Explanation		Reliable road recognition is necessary for autonomous driving of cars and mobile robots. This study will deal with the recognition of roads (or traversable regions) in campus environments, where road boundaries may not be clear enough to be detected by a simple line detection method. There may also be bumps, ditches, and potholes, that should be detected for safe driving. We will integrate vision and range sensors to reliably recognize traversable regions.
Research Steps		1. Literature survey and basic training in image processing (one month). 2. Improve our current visual road recognition method (one month). 3. Develop a method of integrating range sensor and vision (two months). 4. Testing the method with recorded image sequences and adding necessary improvements (one month).
Period		5 months, but can be extended as a 10-month project, by including on-line experiments.
Necessary Background, Knowledge, Skills		Fundamental knowledge of probability and statistics. Basic computer programming skills (preferably, C or C++). Knowledge of image processing will be helpful but not necessarily required.
Further Information		http://www-cv.mech.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/~jun/
Contact Person		Dr. Jun Miura (jun@mech.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp)