The Oxford Mobile Robotics Group, providing research for aspects of mobile autonomy, has developed an autonomous vehicle to map and navigate the city of Oxford, UK. The vehicle, called Lisa and funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), is used to collect large amounts of high quality data and imagery to produce a virtual version of the city. One potential use of this virtual city is to assist tourists in central Oxford with their location by sending information to a mobile phone capable of receiving audio-visual data.
The images were captured by Ladybug and Bumblebee camera models from Point Grey Research, which develops digital camera technology for machine vision. The data will be available from May 2009 and is intended as a research tool for the mobile robotics community.
