Robotics and computer vision / 2023
Existing assistive guidance is rigid, expensive, and rarely contextual. A quadruped platform with reliable scene perception and clear audio cues could expand assistive options. But only if perception is dependable and the human-facing feedback is intelligible in real environments.
I led the computer vision and perception integration on a team project around a Unitree Go1 quadruped. The system consumes camera frames, runs YOLO-based detection through darknet_ros, publishes perception events on ROS topics, and drives an audio feedback layer (sound_play) that warns the user about obstacles and nearby objects.
My part
Decisions
Decoupling perception from the Unitree locomotion stack meant detection quality could be evaluated and tuned independently, and the same perception layer could be reused in simulation and on hardware.
Raw detection rates produce unhelpful, repetitive announcements. The audio bridge throttles and dedupes events so cues remain intelligible.
Screens
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
Camera frames feed a perception node running YOLO inference via darknet_ros.
Detections are published on ROS topics with class labels and bounding boxes.
An audio bridge subscribes to perception events and synthesises spoken cues through sound_play with debouncing so the user is not overwhelmed.
The Unitree Go1 stack handles locomotion; perception and audio operate as parallel ROS subsystems.
Built with
Links
More work
ARIRA ROS-based autonomous retail robot combining real-time shelf perception, multi-object tracking, autonomous navigation, customer-request handling, and ERP synchronisation.Validated in simulationVision Operations PlatformBrowser-to-inference platform for streaming camera frames to a FastAPI detection service, visualising detections in the browser, and monitoring streaming behaviour in real time.MaintainedPath Planning SimulatorInteractive browser-based simulator comparing A*, Dijkstra, and an RRT-style planner on a configurable grid with obstacle painting, start/goal placement, and live stats.Maintained