Developments continue to pour in as the Kinect community pushes itself to further improve the Kinect robots with automated navigation. The most recent one to enter in the list of Kinect contributions is this Kinect Computationally Constrained MAV that  enables users to conduct 3d mapping and exploration. Youtube user frankerssj recently released this video of this project at work. The developer explains how they managed to create this Kinect robot and also hook up a viable software that creates the 3d image map using updated pixels. In the video, the Quadrotor flies around the room and tracks objects which transforms them into a digital map. The quadrotor can also use this data to independently hover around and avoid incoming obstacles. This grants users an automated navigation robot along with an effective 3d mapping machine.
Here is a description by the developer:
“The quadrotor is purchased from ascending technologies. It comes with an IMU and low level attitude stabilization. We outfitted the robot with a laser scanner, Microsoft Kinect sensor, and deflective mirrors to create a fully autonomous platform. We developed a navigation system that enables realtime localization, mapping, planning and control of the robot in confined indoor environments. All computations are done onboard the 1.6GHz atom processor with no requirements of external infrastructure. The exploration algorithm interacts with the planner and controller and provides continuous guidance to the robot.”
For more information about this Kinect MAV, visit the project’s Youtube Page.
