R. Mebarki's web page

Rafik Mebarki

Current works and background

Am currently working on vision-guided aerial robotics. In addition, I proposed and initiated two research projects here at PRISMA Lab. The first one consists in nonlinear control of UAVs in GPS denied environments, while the second one is about UAV state estimation mainly by means of vision. Specifically, in the first project I developed an image-based lowlevel nonlinear-adaptive controller that can stabilize quadrotor UAVs with respect to visual targets, in GPS-denied environments. Successful experimental results have been obtained with a quadrotor equipped with only a low-cost sensing suite (see TRO 2015 paper and video below). I also exploited the result for autonomous visual landing (2015 SSRR paper). As for the second project, I proposed to exploit image moments as main feedback for UAV velocity estimation. I have shown that this has the advantage of yielding the estimator independent of the scale factor, which is a clear contribution to the literature. From a corresponding paper, I received the Best Paper Award of the 2014 IEEE SSRR conference last October in Hokkaido, Japan.

My past PhD research works dealt with ultrasound visual servoing for medical robotics. They have been carried out within Lagadic team at IRISA/INRIA Rennes, France.

Publications

  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, and B. Siciliano, "Vision-based and IMU-aided scale factor-free linear velocity estimator", Autonomous Robots, accepted.
  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, and B. Siciliano, "Autonomous landing of rotary-wing aerial vehicles by image-based visual servoing in GPS-denied environments", in Proc. of the IEEE Int. Symp. on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), October, 2015.
  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, and B. Siciliano, "Nonlinear visual control of unmanned aerial vehicles in GPS-denied environments", in IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 1004-1017, 2015.
  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, and B. Siciliano, "Toward image-based visual servoing for cooperative aerial manipulation", in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2015.
  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, "Image moments-based velocity estimation of UAVs in GPS denied environments", in IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, Hokkaido, Japan, October 2014. Best Paper Award.
  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, and B. Siciliano, "Image-based control for dynamically cross-coupled aerial manipulation", in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2014.
  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, "Image-based control for aerial manipulation", Asian Journal of Control, 16(3), pp. 646-656, May, 2014.
  • R. Mebarki, J. Cacace, V. Lippiello, "Velocity estimation of an UAV using visual and IMU data in a GPS-denied environment", in IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, Linkoping, Sweden, October 2013.
  • V. Lippiello, R. Mebarki, and F. Ruggiero, "Visual Coordinated Landing of a UAV on a Mobile Robot Manipulator", in IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, Linkoping, Sweden, October 2013.
  • R. Mebarki, V. Lippiello, and B. Siciliano, "Exploiting image moments for aerial manipulation control", in ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, Palo Alto, CA, October 2013.
  • R. Mebarki and B. Siciliano, "Velocity-free image-based control of unmanned aerial vehicles", in 2013 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, pp. 1522-1527, Wollongong, Australia, July 2013.
  • V. Lippiello, R. Mebarki, "Closed-Form Solution for Absolute Scale Velocity Estimation Using Visual and Inertial Data with a Sliding Least-Squares Estimation", in 21st Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, pp. 1261 - 1266, Crete, Greece, June 2013.
  • R. Mebarki, A. Krupa, F. Chaumette. 2D ultrasound probe complete guidance by visual servoing using image moments. IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 26(2), pp. 296-306, April 2010.
  • R. Mebarki, A. Krupa, F. Chaumette. Modeling and 3D local estimation for in-plane and out-of-plane motion guidance by 2D ultrasound-based visual servoing. In IEEE Int. Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA'09, Pages 319-325, Japan, May 2009.
  • R. Mebarki, A. Krupa, C. Collewet. Automatic guidance of an ultrasound probe by visual servoing based on B-mode image moments. In Int. Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI'08, Pages 339-346, New York, September 2008. Nominated paper.
  • R. Mebarki, A. Krupa, F. Chaumette. Image moments-based ultrasound visual servoing. In IEEE Int. Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA'08, Pages 113-119, Pasadena, California, May 2008. Nominated paper.

    • PhD thesis:

  • R. Mebarki. Automatic guidance of robotized 2D ultrasound probes with visual servoing based on image moments. PhD Thesis University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France, March 2010.

Distinctions

  • Best Paper Award in the 2014 IEEE Int. Symp. on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, Hokkaido, Japan, October 2014.
  • Nomination for the MICCAI Young Scientist Awards 2008 in Robotics and Interventions category. International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, MICCAI'08, New York City, USA, September 2008.
  • ICRA 2008 Best Vision Paper Award Finalist, IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Pasadena, CA, USA, 2008.