CoNVOI: Context-aware Navigation using Vision Language Models in Outdoor and Indoor Environments

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Sathyamoorthy, Adarsh Jagan, Weerakoon, Kasun, Elnoor, Mohamed, Zore, Anuj, Ichter, Brian, Xia, Fei, Tan, Jie, Yu, Wenhao, Manocha, Dinesh
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Sathyamoorthy, Adarsh Jagan
Weerakoon, Kasun
Elnoor, Mohamed
Zore, Anuj
Ichter, Brian
Xia, Fei
Tan, Jie
Yu, Wenhao
Manocha, Dinesh
author_facet Sathyamoorthy, Adarsh Jagan
Weerakoon, Kasun
Elnoor, Mohamed
Zore, Anuj
Ichter, Brian
Xia, Fei
Tan, Jie
Yu, Wenhao
Manocha, Dinesh
contents We present ConVOI, a novel method for autonomous robot navigation in real-world indoor and outdoor environments using Vision Language Models (VLMs). We employ VLMs in two ways: first, we leverage their zero-shot image classification capability to identify the context or scenario (e.g., indoor corridor, outdoor terrain, crosswalk, etc) of the robot's surroundings, and formulate context-based navigation behaviors as simple text prompts (e.g. ``stay on the pavement"). Second, we utilize their state-of-the-art semantic understanding and logical reasoning capabilities to compute a suitable trajectory given the identified context. To this end, we propose a novel multi-modal visual marking approach to annotate the obstacle-free regions in the RGB image used as input to the VLM with numbers, by correlating it with a local occupancy map of the environment. The marked numbers ground image locations in the real-world, direct the VLM's attention solely to navigable locations, and elucidate the spatial relationships between them and terrains depicted in the image to the VLM. Next, we query the VLM to select numbers on the marked image that satisfy the context-based behavior text prompt, and construct a reference path using the selected numbers. Finally, we propose a method to extrapolate the reference trajectory when the robot's environmental context has not changed to prevent unnecessary VLM queries. We use the reference trajectory to guide a motion planner, and demonstrate that it leads to human-like behaviors (e.g. not cutting through a group of people, using crosswalks, etc.) in various real-world indoor and outdoor scenarios.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_15637
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CoNVOI: Context-aware Navigation using Vision Language Models in Outdoor and Indoor Environments
Sathyamoorthy, Adarsh Jagan
Weerakoon, Kasun
Elnoor, Mohamed
Zore, Anuj
Ichter, Brian
Xia, Fei
Tan, Jie
Yu, Wenhao
Manocha, Dinesh
Robotics
We present ConVOI, a novel method for autonomous robot navigation in real-world indoor and outdoor environments using Vision Language Models (VLMs). We employ VLMs in two ways: first, we leverage their zero-shot image classification capability to identify the context or scenario (e.g., indoor corridor, outdoor terrain, crosswalk, etc) of the robot's surroundings, and formulate context-based navigation behaviors as simple text prompts (e.g. ``stay on the pavement"). Second, we utilize their state-of-the-art semantic understanding and logical reasoning capabilities to compute a suitable trajectory given the identified context. To this end, we propose a novel multi-modal visual marking approach to annotate the obstacle-free regions in the RGB image used as input to the VLM with numbers, by correlating it with a local occupancy map of the environment. The marked numbers ground image locations in the real-world, direct the VLM's attention solely to navigable locations, and elucidate the spatial relationships between them and terrains depicted in the image to the VLM. Next, we query the VLM to select numbers on the marked image that satisfy the context-based behavior text prompt, and construct a reference path using the selected numbers. Finally, we propose a method to extrapolate the reference trajectory when the robot's environmental context has not changed to prevent unnecessary VLM queries. We use the reference trajectory to guide a motion planner, and demonstrate that it leads to human-like behaviors (e.g. not cutting through a group of people, using crosswalks, etc.) in various real-world indoor and outdoor scenarios.
title CoNVOI: Context-aware Navigation using Vision Language Models in Outdoor and Indoor Environments
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.15637