NanoFlowNet: Real-time Dense Optical Flow on a Nano Quadcopter

Rik J. Bouwmeester, Federico Paredes-Valles, Guido C.H.E. De Croon

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
30 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Nano quadcopters are small, agile, and cheap platforms that are well suited for deployment in narrow, cluttered environments. Due to their limited payload, these vehicles are highly constrained in processing power, rendering conventional vision-based methods for safe and autonomous navigation incompatible. Recent machine learning developments promise high-performance perception at low latency, while dedicated edge computing hardware has the potential to augment the processing capabilities of these limited devices. In this work, we present NanoFlowNet, a lightweight convolutional neural network for real-time dense optical flow estimation on edge computing hardware. We draw inspiration from recent advances in semantic segmentation for the design of this network. Additionally, we guide the learning of optical flow using motion boundary ground truth data, which improves performance with no impact on latency. Validation results on the MPI-Sintel dataset show the high performance of the proposed network given its constrained architecture. Additionally, we successfully demonstrate the capabilities of NanoFlowNet by deploying it on the ultra-low power GAP8 microprocessor and by applying it to vision-based obstacle avoidance on board a Bitcraze Crazyflie, a 34 g nano quadcopter.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - ICRA 2023
Subtitle of host publicationIEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
PublisherIEEE
Pages1996-2003
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9798350323658
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2023 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: 29 May 20232 Jun 2023

Publication series

NameProceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Volume2023-May
ISSN (Print)1050-4729

Conference

Conference2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period29/05/232/06/23

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

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