Automatic Insertion Work Based on Visual Measurement and State Transition Analysis with Contact Force Estimation

Abstract

This paper reports on the automation technique of live line re-connection included in the electricity distribution work using robot manipulator. There are two major technical issues ;visual measurement of the position of the object in an unstructured outdoor environment and insertion of the wire terminals to a metal sleeve for connection. As a distinctive structure of the work, the distance to the object from CCD camera is quite shorter than the distance to the background. Therefore, we can obtain a clear image of the object while the background is out of focus. We have developed a method of object detection by template matching combined with differential filtering technique of image.The direction of the electric wire and the direction of the sleeve were aligned and the tip of the wire is positioned to the tip of a sleeve using this method. Once the position is reached, the insertion process starts using the compliance control with estimation of the contact force In addition, we have developed procedures for error recovery based on the state transition analysis.