New Development In Robot Vision

The field of robotic vision has advanced dramatically recently with the development of new range sensors. Tremendous progress has been made resulting in significant impact on areas such as robotic navigation, scene/environment understanding, and visual learning. This edited book provides a solid and diversified reference source for some of the most recent important advancements in the field of robotic vision. The book starts with articles that describe new techniques to understand scenes from 2D/3D data such as estimation of planar structures, recognition of multiple objects in the scene using different kinds of features as well as their spatial and semantic relationships, generation of 3D object models, approach to recognize partially occluded objects, etc. Novel techniques are introduced to improve 3D perception accuracy with other sensors such as a gyroscope, positioning accuracy with a visual servoing based alignment strategy for microassembly, and increasing object recognition reliability using related manipulation motion models. For autonomous robot navigation, different vision-based localization and tracking strategies and algorithms are discussed. New approaches using probabilistic analysis for robot navigation, online learning of vision-based robot control, and 3D motion estimation via intensity differences from a monocular camera are described. This collection will be beneficial to graduate students, researchers, and professionals working in the area of robotic vision.

"Presents a solid framework for understanding existing work and planning future research."--Cover.

The book is intended for advanced students in physics, mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, robotics, engine engineering and for specialists in computer vision and robotics on the techniques for the development of vision-based robot projects. It focusses on autonomous and mobile service robots for indoor work, and teaches the techniques for the development of vision-based robot projects. A basic knowledge of informatics is assumed, but the basic introduction helps to adjust the knowledge of the reader accordingly. A practical treatment of the material enables a comprehensive understanding of how to handle specific problems, such as inhomogeneous illumination or occlusion. With this book, the reader should be able to develop object-oriented programs and show mathematical basic understanding. Such topics as image processing, navigation, camera types and camera calibration structure the described steps of developing further applications of vision-based robot projects.

Industrial robots carry out simple tasks in customized environments for which it is typical that nearly all e?ector movements can be planned during an - line phase. A continual control based on sensory feedback is at most necessary at e?ector positions near target locations utilizing torque or haptic sensors. It is desirable to develop new-generation robots showing higher degrees of autonomy for solving high-level deliberate tasks in natural and dynamic en- ronments. Obviously, camera-equipped robot systems, which take and process images and make use of the visual data, can solve more sophisticated robotic tasks. The development of a (semi-) autonomous camera-equipped robot must be grounded on an infrastructure, based on which the system can acquire and/or adapt task-relevant competences autonomously. This infrastructure consists of technical equipment to support the presentation of real world training samples, various learning mechanisms for automatically acquiring function approximations, and testing methods for evaluating the quality of the learned functions. Accordingly, to develop autonomous camera-equipped robot systems one must ?rst demonstrate relevant objects, critical situations, and purposive situation-action pairs in an experimental phase prior to the application phase. Secondly, the learning mechanisms are responsible for - quiring image operators and mechanisms of visual feedback control based on supervised experiences in the task-relevant, real environment. This paradigm of learning-based development leads to the concepts of compatibilities and manifolds. Compatibilities are general constraints on the process of image formation which hold more or less under task-relevant or accidental variations of the imaging conditions.

Industrial robots carry out simple tasks in customized environments for which it is typical that nearly all e?ector movements can be planned during an - line phase. A continual control based on sensory feedback is at most necessary at e?ector positions near target locations utilizing torque or haptic sensors. It is desirable to develop new-generation robots showing higher degrees of autonomy for solving high-level deliberate tasks in natural and dynamic en- ronments. Obviously, camera-equipped robot systems, which take and process images and make use of the visual data, can solve more sophisticated robotic tasks. The development of a (semi-) autonomous camera-equipped robot must be grounded on an infrastructure, based on which the system can acquire and/or adapt task-relevant competences autonomously. This infrastructure consists of technical equipment to support the presentation of real world training samples, various learning mechanisms for automatically acquiring function approximations, and testing methods for evaluating the quality of the learned functions. Accordingly, to develop autonomous camera-equipped robot systems one must ?rst demonstrate relevant objects, critical situations, and purposive situation-action pairs in an experimental phase prior to the application phase. Secondly, the learning mechanisms are responsible for - quiring image operators and mechanisms of visual feedback control based on supervised experiences in the task-relevant, real environment. This paradigm of learning-based development leads to the concepts of compatibilities and manifolds. Compatibilities are general constraints on the process of image formation which hold more or less under task-relevant or accidental variations of the imaging conditions.

Intelligent robotics has become the focus of extensive research activity. This effort has been motivated by the wide variety of applications that can benefit from the developments. These applications often involve mobile robots, multiple robots working and interacting in the same work area, and operations in hazardous environments like nuclear power plants. Applications in the consumer and service sectors are also attracting interest. These applications have highlighted the importance of performance, safety, reliability, and fault tolerance. This volume is a selection of papers from a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in July 1989 with a focus on active perception and robot vision. The papers deal with such issues as motion understanding, 3-D data analysis, error minimization, object and environment modeling, object detection and recognition, parallel and real-time vision, and data fusion. The paradigm underlying the papers is that robotic systems require repeated and hierarchical application of the perception-planning-action cycle. The primary focus of the papers is the perception part of the cycle. Issues related to complete implementations are also discussed.

Industrial Assembly is a rapidly changing field with significant importance in production. This book is the first of its kind to combine technology, design, methods, and planning and control models of assembly operations and systems. With the increasing importance of assembly in industry and of simultaneous engineering approaches, this timely publication provides: comprehensive coverage of technological, engineering, and management aspects of this field; multi-disciplinary approaches to rationalization of assembly operations and systems; explanation of qualitative models, information technologies, and design techniques, which have been practised effectively in industrial assembly; as well as theoretical foundations and emerging trends that shape the future of assembly.

Papers on robot vision. Discusses the next stage of robot development, concerned with the design & use of the adaptive robot-the robot that can react to changes in its environment.

“Visual Sensing and its Applications: Integration of Laser Sensors to Industrial Robots” provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of research and development on this robotic vision system. A laser-structured light is the main concern in discussions of visual sensing. Also addressed in this book are all components of the robotic vision system and an emphasis on how to increase the accuracy of the system using three levels of calibration. This includes calibration of the vision system (eye calibration), calibration of eye-to-hand configuration and calibration of robot kinematics (hand calibration). With the integration of the laser sensors to industrial robots numerous applications in the field of robotic welding, grinding, machining, inspection, and palletizing are illustrated based on practical engineering projects in order to demonstrate how the visual sensing is performed. The book will serve as a valuable resource for researchers and engineers in the areas of robotics and machine vision. Dr. Zhongxue Gan is a vice chairman and chief scientist of the ENN Group, China. He serves as a member of the National Energy Expert Consultation Committee of China and member of the National Coal Council of the USA. He is also a co-founder of Intersmart Robotic Systems Co. Ltd., China. He was a research fellow in flexible automation systems at ABB and a founding director of ABB Corporate Research Robot Laboratories, both in the USA and in China. Dr. Qing Tang is a co-founder and CEO of Intersmart Robotic Systems Co. Ltd., China and an adjunct professor in Physics at Sichuan University, China. He was a principle consulting engineer and project manager at the ABB Corporate Research Robot Laboratory in the USA.