Object Detection

Context: As of this year, URC Rules specify two new waypoints during the Autonomy mission that require the Rover to detect and navigate toward two objects placed on the ground.

The 2 objects will have GNSS coordinates within the vicinity of the objects (<10 m). Autonomous detection of the tools will be required. The first object will be an orange rubber mallet. The second object will be a standard 1 L wide-mouthed plastic water bottle of unspecified color/markings (approximately 21.5 cm tall by 9 cm diameter).

Currently, the perception system does not support detection of objects besides ARTags so we must experiment with and implement such a detection system. One way to do this is using a learning-based instance segmentation model such as [YOLO] https://docs.ultralytics.com/tasks/segment/) to extract the mallet and waterbottle from the ZED camera feed.