A testbed for robotic visual servoing and catching of moving objects

Abstract

This paper describes an experimental testbed, suitable for experiments on visual servoing and catching of moving objects by a robotic manipulator, which allows the implementation of different control architectures. This testbed is composed by: (1) a vision system responsible for object following and for the real-time computation of the parameters characterizing the object motion, (2) a system devoted to the prediction of the object motion, (3) a manipulator control system suitable for the object interception and catching tasks. An application is presented, consisting of the catching, by a Puma 560 manipulator, of ping-pong balls rolling on a table.