Research projects

My primary research interests are around computer vision embedded within systems, and connections betweeen computer vision and neurosciences, including biological vision of insects to primates, and medical imaging of neuroanatomy.

Computer vision and Biological vision

I am interested in developing algorithms that replicate useful aspects of biological visual performance. This is to develop therapies for vision loss such as retinal implants and assistive devices, as well as to develop better algorithms for computer vision.

Graduated: Andrew Dankers developed a mechatronic simulation of active dynamic human visual saliency incorporating inhibition of return. This managed fixations across items of interest in a moving scene with an active stereo head, and via fixation with the zero disparity field and a Markov random field approach segmented objects corresponding to the points of interest.

As part of his PhD Chris McCarthy has developed new models for visual docking from optical flow based on the spherical view field of honeybees. By using the sperhical vision model we are able to construct algorithms that rapidly recover time-to-contact for obstacles in the environment. This project is in progress.

John Lim is using the features of spherical vision to develop new algorithms for recovery of self motion.

We have looked at visual navigation using a fixated log-polar camera. Projects have developed corner-based fixation and direction control for docking a fixated object using only visual paramters, specifically, the rotational component of log-polar optical flow. We have also developed a new space variant form of the Hough transform that improves the detection of lines in log-polar images.

Corner tracking for a simple corner under robot motion. 

Corner tracking in an office scene under robot motion. 

Medical Image analysis

The Automated Anatomical Structure Extraction for Diagnosis and Populations Norms project is developing statistical population models of ageing neuroanatomy to help diagnose conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease. PhD students Pengdong Xiao and Luping Zhou are working on this project. Staff contributing include Paulette Lieby, Richard Hartley, and Tiberio Caetano. The project is in collaboration with the Centre for Mental Health Research at ANU.

I am supervising a project by Gavin Baker to extract the human cochlea from CT images. We have developed new methods for finding the centre-line of tubular structures with complex cross-sections, such as the human cochlea.

RoboCup 2002

Previously, I directed the Robomutts++, the fourth placed team in the Robocup Sony Legged League in the International Robot Soccer Competition in Fukuoka, Japan. I am also advisor for the team, and supervisor for a postgraduate student in the F180 League. of Robocup. This team was also placed fourth internationally at Fukuoka.

The Roobots, our Robocup small size league team.

Students - Chair

PhD

Andrew Dankers (with Alex Zelinsky)

Chris McCarthy (with Mandyam Srinivasan (RSBS, ANU) and Giulio Sandini (LIRA Lab, Uni of Genoa, Italy)

David Shaw

Pengdong Xiao (with Tiberio Caetano and Paulette Lieby)

John Lim

Cosupervised

Publications

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Monograph

1. "Knowledge-based Vision-Guided Robots", by N Barnes and Zhi-Qiang Liu, Physica-Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-7908-1494-6.

Edited proceedings

1. "Proceedings ACRA04: The Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation", eds N Barnes and David Austin, Canberra, Australia, Dec., 2004.

Book Chapters

1. "Smart Cars: The Next Frontier", L Petersson, L Fletcher, N Barnes and A Zelinsky, Chapter 5 in Advances in Applied Artificial Intelligence, John Fulcher, Idea Group Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-59140-828-8.

Journal Articles

1. "Estimation of the Epipole Using Optical Flow at Antipodal Points", J Lim and N Barnes, CVIU, in press, accepted for publication 15 May 2009.
2. "Hippocampal Shape Analysis for Alzheimer's Disease Using an Efficient Hypothesis Test and Regularized Descriminative Deformation", L Zhou, P Lieby, N Barnes, C Reglade-Meslin, J Walker, N Cherbiun, R I Hartley, Hippocampus, 19(6), June 2009, pp 533-540.
3. "Identifying Anatomical Shape Difference by Regularized Descriminative Direction", L Zhou, R I Hartley, L Wang P Lieby, N Barnes, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 28(5), June, 2009, pp 937-950. (Available online DOI=10.1109/TMI.2009.2012556).
4. "A robust docking strategy for a mobile robot using flow field divergence", C McCarthy, N Barnes, R Mahony, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Aug 2008, 24(4), 832-842. (Available online DOI=10.1109/TRO.2008.926871).
5. "Real-time speed sign detection using the radial symmetry detector", N Barnes, A Zelinsky, and L Fletcher, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 9 (2), pp 321-332, June, 2008.
6. "Robotics Research in Australia", N Barnes and A Zelinsky, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 15 (2), 2008, pp 89-96.
7. "MAP ZDF segmentation and tracking using active stereo vision: Hand tracking case study", A Dankers, N Barnes and A Zelinsky, CVIU, special issue on Vision for Human-Computer Interaction, 108(1-2), Oct-Nov, 2007, pp 74-86.
8. "Towards Safer Roads by Integration of Road Scene Monitoring and Vehicle Control", by Lars Petersson, Luke Fletcher, Alex Zelinsky, and F Arnell, in International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 25, No. 1, Jan, 2006, pp 53-71.
9. "Model-Image Registration of Parametric Shape Models: Fitting a Shell to the Cochlea", by Gavin Baker, in The Insight Journal: special issue ISC/NA-MIC/MICCAI Workshop on Open-Source Software, August, 2005.
10. "Correlating Driver Gaze with the Road Scene for Driver Assistance", by Luke Fletcher, Gareth Loy, Nick Barnes, and Alex Zelinsky, in Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Elsevier Science, Vol. 52, No. 1, pp 71-84, July, 2005.
11. "Efficient Active Monocular Fixation Using the Log-Polar Sensor", by A Yeung and N Barnes, in International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications: Special Issue on Biorobotics and Biomechatronics in Australasia, Vol. 1, Nos. 1/2, pp. 157-173, 2005.
12. "Embodied Categorisation for Vision-Guided Mobile Robots'' by N M Barnes and Z Q Liu, Pattern Recogition , Volume 37, Issue 2, Feb, 2004, Pages 299-312.
13. "Vision guided circumnavigating autonomous robots" by N M Barnes and Z Q Liu, International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence , 14 (6), 689-714, 2000.
14. "Knowledge Based Shape from Shading'' by N M Barnes and Z Q Liu, International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence, 13 (1), 1-24, 1999.

Refereed Conference papers

1. "Robust Visual Homing with Landmark Angles", by John Lim and Nick Barnes, In Proc Robotics Science and Systems (RSS), June 2009, Seattle, USA, in press.
2. "Real Time Motion Recovery using a Hemispherical Sensor", by Rebecca G Dengate, Nick Barnes, John Lim, Chi Luu and Robyn Guymer, In Proc Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, ACRA, Dec., 2008.
3. "Insect Inspired Three Dimensional Centring", by Luke Cole and Nick Barnes, In Proc Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, ACRA, Dec., 2008.
4. "Towards a Hazard Perception Assistance System using Visual Motion", by Chris McCarthy and Nick Barnes, in Proc Workshop on Computer Vision for the Visually Impaired, A Workshop of ECCV, Oct, 2008.
5. "Humanoid Vision Resembles Primate Archetype", by A Dankers, N Barnes, W Bischof and A Zelinksy, in Proc 11th Int Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER'08), July, 2008.
6. "Regularized Discriminative Directon for Shape Difference Analysis", by L Zhou and R Hartley and L Wang and P Lieby and Nick Barnes, in MICCAI, 2008.
7. "Directions of Egomotion from Antipodal Points", by John Lim and Nick Barnes, in IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Anchorage, Alaska, June, 2008.
8. "Speeding up Mutual Information Computation Using NVIDIA CUDA Hardware", by Ramtin Shams and Nick Barnes, in DICTA 2007 Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications, Adelaide, Australia, Dec, 2007.
9. "Image Registration in Hough Space Using Gradient of Images", by Ramtin Shams, Nick Barnes and Richard Hartley, in DICTA 2007 Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications, Adelaide, Australia, Dec, 2007.
10. "Estimation of the Epipole using Optical Flow at Antipodal Points", by John Lim and Nick Barnes, in IEEE ICCV Workshop: Omnivis, Oct, 2007.
11. "A Study of Hippocampal Shape Difference Between Genders by Efficient Hypothesis Test and Descriminative Deformation", by Luping Zhou, Richard Hartley, Paulette Lieby, Nick Barnes, Kaarin Anstey, Nicolas Cherbuin and Perminder Sachdev, in MICCAI 2007 Medical Imaging Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, Brisbane, Australia, Nov, 2007.
12. "An MRF and Gaussian Curvature based Shape Representation for Shape Matching", by Pengdong Xiao, Nick Barnes, Tiberio Caetano, and Paulette Leiby, in IEEE CVPR Workshop Beyond Multiview Geometry: Robust Estimation and Organization of Shapes from Multiple Cues, June, 2007.
13. "A Reactive Vision System: Active-Dynamic Saliency", by Andrew Dankers, Nick Barnes and Alexander Zelinsky, Proc. Interational Conference on Vision Systems, March, 2007.
14. "Real Time Biologically-Inspired Depth Maps from Spherical Flow", by Chris McMcarthy, Nick Barnes and Mandyam Srinivasan, Proc. IEEE Interational Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2007), Rome, Italy, May, 2007.
15. "Insect Inspired Robotics", by J Lim, C McCarthy, D Shaw, N Barnes and Luke Cole, in Proceedings ACRA06: The Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Aukland, New Zealand, Dec., 2006.
16. "Sign Detection and Driving Competency for Older Drivers with Impaired Vision", by J G Walker, N Barnes and K Anstey, in Proceedings ACRA06: The Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Aukland, New Zealand, Dec., 2006.
17. "Topological Repair on Voxel-Based Quadrangular Meshes", by P Lieby, N Barnes, and B McKay, in International Workshop on Mathematical Foundations of Computational Anatomy: Geometrical and Statistical Methods in Non-Linear Image Registration, a workshop at MICCAI 2006, Copenhagen, Denmark, Oct 2006.
18. "A Robust Docking Strategy for a Mobile Robot using Flow Field Divergence", by Chris McCarthy and Nick Barnes , in Proc IEEE/RSJ IROS, Beijing, China Oct, 2006.
19. "Primate Structures in Synthetic Dynamic Active Visual Saliency", by Andrew Dankers, Nick Barnes, and Alexander Zelinsky, in Proc Sixth International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics, Paris, Sept 2006.
20. "Perspective Rectangle Detection", by David Shaw and Nick Barnes, Applications of Computer Vision, Workshop at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), May 2006.
21. "Regular Polygon Detection", by Nick Barnes, Gareth Loy, David Shaw, and Antonio Robles-Kelly, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, Oct., 2005, Beijing China.
22. "Bimodal Active Stereo Vision", by Andrew Dankers, Nick Barnes, and Alex Zelinsky, Proc. 5th Int Conf on Field and Service Robotics (FSR05), Port Douglas, 19-31 July, 2005.
23. "Road Obstacle Detection Using Robust Model Fitting", by Niloofar Gheissari and Nick Barnes, Proc. 5th Int Conf on Field and Service Robotics (FSR05), Port Douglas, 19-31 July, 2005.
24. "Real-time regular polygonal sign detection", by Nick Barnes and Gareth Loy, Proc. 5th Int Conf on Field and Service Robotics (FSR05), Port Douglas, 19-31 July, 2005.
25. "Active Vision for Road Scene Awareness", by Andrew Dankers, Nick Barnes and Alexander Zelinsky, Proc. IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IVS05)), Los Vegas, USA, June, 2005.
26. "Improved Signal To Noise Ratio And Computational Speed For Gradient-Based Detection Algorithms", by Nick Barnes, Proc. IEEE Interational Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2005), Barcelona, Spain, 2005.
27. "A Sign Reading Driver Assistance System Using Eye Gaze", Luke Fletcher, Lars Petersson, , David Austin, and Alex Zelinksy, in Proc. IEEE Interational Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2005), Barcelona, Spain, 2005.
28. "Regular polygon detection as an interest point operator for slam", by D Shaw and N Barnes, in Proceedings ACRA04: The Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Canberra, Australia, Dec., 2004.
29. "Active Vision - Rectification and Depth Mapping", by A Dankers, N Barnes, and A Zelinsky, in Proceedings ACRA04: The Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Canberra, Australia, Dec., 2004.
30. "Cochlea Modelling: Clinical Challenges and Model Extraction", by Gavin Baker, S O'Leary, N Barnes and E Kazmierczak, in Proc AI2004, the 17th Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Cairns Australia, 2004.
31. "Fast Shape-based Road Sign Detection for a Driver Assistance System", by G Loy and N Barnes, in Proc. IEEE/RSJ Interational Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2004), pp 70-75, Sept 28 - Oct 2, 2004, Sendai, Japan., 2004.
32. "Comparison of Temporal Filters for Optical Flow Estimation in Continuous Mobile Robot Navigation", by C. McCarthy, N. Barnes, in Proc. Interational Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER2004), Singapore, 2004. --- "International Foundation of Robotics Research Student Fellowship Award".
33. "Principal Flow for Tubular Objects with Non-circular Cross-sections", by Gavin Baker and N Barnes, in Proc International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Aug 2004, Vol 3, pp 750-753.
34. "Non-linear voting in the space variant Hough transform", by N. Barnes, in Proc. OMNIVIS'04 Workshop at ECCV, The European Conference on Computer Vision, Prague, May, 2004.
35. "Fast radial symmetry speed sign detection and classification", by N Barnes and A Zelinsky, in Proc. IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, Parma, Italy, 2004, pp. 566-571.
36. "Performance of optical flow techniques for indoor navigation with a mobile robot", by C. McCarthy, N. Barnes, in Proc. IEEE Interational Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2004), New Orleans, USA, 2004.
37. "An interactive driver assistance system monitoring the scene in and out of the vehicle", by L. Petersson, L. Fletcher, N. Barnes, A Zelinsky, in Proc. IEEE Interational Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2004), New Orleans, USA, 2004.
38. "Fast sum of absolute differences visual landmark detector", by C. Watman, D. Austin, N. Barnes, G. Overett, S. Thompson, in Proc. IEEE Interational Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2004), New Orleans, USA, 2004.
39. "Active monocular fixation using the log-polar sensor", by A. Yeung, N. Barnes, in Proc. Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Brisbane, Australia, December 2003.
40. "Performance of temporal filters for optical flow estimation in mobile robot corridor centring and visual odometry", by C McCarthy, N Barnes, in Proc. Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Brisbane, Australia, December 2003.
41. "Red is the new black - Or is it?", by D. Austin, N. Barnes, in Proc. Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation, Brisbane, Australia, December 2003.
42. "Towards an Efficient Optimal Trajectory Planner for Multiple Mobile Robots", by J. Thomas, A. Blair, N. Barnes, in Proc. IEEE/RSJ Interational Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2003), Las Vegas, USA, Nov., 2003.
43. "Particle Attraction Localisation", by D. George, N. Barnes, in Proc. IEEE/RSJ Interational Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2003), Las Vegas, USA, Nov., 2003.
44. Knowledge-Based Autonomous Dynamic Colour Calibration", by D. Cameron, N. Barnes, in Proc. Robocup Symposium, 2003, Padua, Italy, July, 2003. --- Engineering Challenge Award
45. "Visual servoing for robocup F180 league", by P Lee, T Dean, A Yap, D Walter, L Kitchen and N Barnes, in Proc. Robocup Symposium, July, 2003, Padua, Italy, 2003.
46. "Towards Log-Polar Fixation for Mobile Robots - Analysis of Corner Tracking on the Log-Polar Camera", by A Yeung and N Barnes, in Proc International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Quebec, Canada, 2002.
47. "Towards real-time strategic teamwork: a RoboCup case study", by K Yoshimura, N. Barnes, R Ronnquist and E A Sonenberg, in Proc. Robocup Symposium, 2002, Japan, 2002.
48. "Omni-drive robot motion on curved paths: The fastest path between two points is not a straight-line", Ashmore M and N Barnes, in Proc Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Dec., 2002, 225-236.
49. "Three embodied vision-guided docking methods for mobile robots" by N M Barnes, in EDEC2001 - Emergence and Development of Embodied Cognition - Symposium at the 3rd International Conference on Cognitive Science, Aug. 2001. PDF available at the symposium site.
50. "Fuzzy control for active perceptual docking" by N M Barnes and Z Q Liu, in Proc. 10th IEEE Int Conf on Fuzzy Systems, Dec., 2001, Melbourne.
51. "Creating Characters for Dynamic Stories in Interactive Games" by D Shaw N M Barnes and A Blair, in Proc. Int. Conf. on Application and Development of Computer Games in the 21st Century, Nov., 2001, Hong Kong, pp 43-48.
52. "Direction Control for an Active docking Behaviour based on the rotational component of log-polar optic flow" by N M Barnes and G Sandini, in ECCV2000 - Proc. European Conference on Computer Vision, Dublin, Ireland, June. 2000, Vol. 2 pp. 167-181. (The copyright for this paper is held by © Spinger-Verlag), available as allowed under the copyright agreement.
53. "Active docking based on the rotational component of log-polar optic flow" by N M Barnes and G Sandini, in ACCV2000 - Proc. Asian Conference on Computer Vision, Taiwan, Jan. 2000, pp. 955-960.
54. "Three embodied vision-guided docking methods for mobile robots" by N M Barnes, in EDEC2001 - Emergence and Development of Embodied Cognition - Symposium at the 3rd International Conference on Cognitive Science, Aug. 2001. PDF available at the symposium site.
55. "Collision-free path planning based on visual information: an application in circumnavigation'' by N M Barnes and Z Q Liu, in Fourth International Symposium on Signal Processing and its Applications, Robotics and Robot Vision Workshop , Gold Coast, August 1996, pp. 50-55.
56. "A Knowledge Based Approach to Shape from Shading'' by N M Barnes and Z Q Liu, in ICIPS '97 - IEEE Int. Conf. on Intelligent Signal Processing , Beijing, October 1997, pp. 1390-1395.
57. "Vision Guided Circumnavigating Autonomous Robots'' by N M Barnes and Z Q Liu, in ICSC '95 - Third International Computer Science Conference: Image Analysis Applications and Computer Graphics , Hong Kong, December 1995, Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

Invited online book chapter.

1. "An overview of visually guided docking''. by Nick Barnes /dock.html. In CVonline: On-Line Compendium of Computer Vision [Online]. R. Fisher (ed). Available: "http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/CVonline/". [2000, November].

Conference abstracts

1. Performance of Optical Flow Techniques for Continuous Mobile Robot Navigation, by C McCarthy, N Barnes, in Insect Sensors and Robotics: A workshop at the biology machine interface, Brisbane, 23-26 Aug, 2004.

Invited Workshop Papers

1. "Robot vision for driver support systems", L Fletcher, N Barnes, and G Loy, in Advances in Robot Vision - From Domestic Environments to Medical Applications, a Workshop at IEEE/RSJ Interational Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS04).
2. "Insect perceptual behaviours as an inspiration for robust robot perceptual systems", by N Barnes, in Insect Sensors and Robotics: A workshop at the biology machine interface, Brisbane, 23-26 Aug, 2004

Last modified January 2008