Silva, H. M.Martins, A.Soares Almeida, José MiguelOliveira Lima, Luís CarlosSilva, E. P.Patacho, A.2026-06-092026-06-092007Silva, H. M., Almeida, J. M., Lima, L., Martins, A., Silva, E. P. & Patacho, A. (2007). Real-time vision system for mobile robotics. Robótica (67), 4-8.0874-9019http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/32481The BoaVista project research - “A Dedicated Vision System for Autonomous Mobile Robot Navigation” was sponsored by Fundação Ciência Tecnologia (FCT) referencia POSI/ROBO/43914/2002.This paper describes a real-time vision architecture for mobile robotics. It is integrated in the research program on mobile robotics pursued at the Autonomous Systems Lab ISEP-IPP. The implemented architecture is characterized by: low computational cost, low latency, low power, highly modularity, configurability, adaptability and scalability. A new method using run length encoding (RLE) colour transition allows real-time edge determination at low computational cost. A pipeline structure further reduces latency and allows a paralleled hardware implementation. A dedicated hardware vision sensor was developed in order to take advantage of the proposed architecture. The real-time characteristics and hardware partial implementation, coupled with low energy consumption address typical of autonomous systems applications.engAutonomous mobile robotsimage processingreal-time systempipelined processingvisionjournal article