Workpiece orientation correction with a robot arm using visual information

Abstract

If robots had the capability of supplying machines with workpieces which are not preoriented, there would be a substantial increase in the number of robots used in industry. A significant contribution to this development would be a method which yields a trajectory whereby such a robot held workpiece can be transported from its receptacle to a machine fixture without a collision. An algorithm is described to find such a trajectory. This algorithm employs refinement of an initial estimate of the position and orientation of a robot held workpiece. The refinement procedure uses visual information. With the refined estimate of the hand-to-workpiece transformation, the workpiece can be moved through a safe trajectory, which was established during a prior instruction phase.