arXiv subjects

Ahmad Kourani

Publications and source records attributed to Ahmad Kourani.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

DSP-SLAM++: A Unified Framework for Multi-Class, High-Fidelity Object SLAM in the Wild

Existing object-aware SLAM systems force a trade-off between real-time performance, multi-class support, and the generation of high-fidelity, semantically coherent object models. To address this trade-off, we present DSP-SLAM++, which extends the DSP-SLAM framework with an asynchronous mapping pipeline for real-time performance and dedicated sensor fusion adaptations for a monocular fisheye-LiDAR suite. Experiments demonstrate that our system generates fine-grained, geometrically-complete shapes for multiple object classes while eliminating severe mapping thread bottlenecks by reducing maximum object processing latency by up to 70\% compared to the state-of-the-art baseline, enabling robust, real-time performance on a challenging 25 Hz multi-class datasets. This work makes high-fidelity, multi-class object SLAM more practical for real-world applications like autonomous driving and robotic manipulation by enabling its use on platforms with common fisheye-LiDAR sensor setups. The open-source code is available at: [github.com/AUBVRL/DSP-SLAMpp].

cs.RO↗

arXiv2021

Marine Locomotion: A Tethered UAV$-$Buoy System with Surge Velocity Control

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are reaching offshore. In this work, we formulate the novel problem of a marine locomotive quadrotor UAV, which manipulates the surge velocity of a floating buoy by means of a cable. The proposed robotic system can have a variety of novel applications for UAVs where their high speed and maneuverability, as well as their ease of deployment and wide field of vision, give them a superior advantage. In addition, the major limitation of limited flight time of quadrotor UAVs is typically addressed through an umbilical power cable, which naturally integrates with the proposed system. A detailed high-fidelity dynamic model is presented for the buoy, UAV, and water environment. In addition, a stable control system design is proposed to manipulate the surge velocity of the buoy within certain constraints that keep the buoy in contact with the water surface. Polar coordinates are used in the controller design process since they outperform traditional Cartesian-based velocity controllers when it comes to ensuring correlated effects on the tracking performance, where each control channel independently affects one control parameter. The system model and controller design are validated in numerical simulation under different wave scenarios.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2021

A Tethered Quadrotor UAV$-$Buoy System for Marine Locomotion

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are finding their way into offshore applications. In this work, we postulate an original system that entails a marine locomotive quadrotor UAV that manipulates the velocity of a floating buoy by means of a cable. By leveraging the advantages of UAVs relative to high speed, maneuverability, ease of deployment, and wide field of vision, the proposed UAV$-$buoy system paves the way in front of a variety of novel applications. The dynamic model that couples the buoy, UAV, cable, and water environment is presented using the Euler-Lagrange method. A stable control system design is proposed to manipulate the forward-surge speed of the buoy under two constraints: maintaining the cable in a taut state, and keeping the buoy in contact with the water surface. Polar coordinates are used in the controller design process to attain correlated effects on the tracking performance, whereby each control channel independently affects one control parameter. This results in improved performance over traditional Cartesian-based velocity controllers, as demonstrated via numerical simulations in wave-free and wavy seas.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2021

Leveraging PID Gain Selection Towards Adaptive Backstepping Control for a Class of Second-Order Systems

In this work, we establish a convenient similarity between an adaptive backstepping control law and a standard proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller for a class of second-order systems. The extracted similarity provides a deeper understanding of the adaptive backstepping design from a performance perspective via an intuitive method to select its otherwise abstract controller gains, on top of its traditional stability perspective. Such a similarity analysis opens the door for researchers to use well-established PID tuning methods to predict the performance of Lyapunov stability-based controllers. At the same time, the obtained formulation reveals how the corresponding PID control law can be linked to Lyapunov stability theory.

eess.SY↗