Distributed visual servoing in robotics

Abstract

A robot is used to visually track a pre-specified target in 6-DOF using a single CCD camera. The computation of the target co-ordinates is carried out using a personal computer. The co-ordinates are then sent to another computer that controls the robot. Different distributed computing architectures, such as TCP/IP, DCOM and SOAP, are explored to determine the most efficient method for transferring the data.As a whole, the robotic arm is able to track the target successfully at 60Hz, which is the maximum half-frame rate of cameras based on the RS170 format. This project has demonstrated that visual tracking can be simple and relatively inexpensive to implement, and can be more easily applied in the manufacturing and assembly environments for increased productivity. Using the algorithm described in this project together with the pre-specified target, 6-DOF visual tracking can be easily integrated into industrial applications.