Visual servoing of cellular robots

Abstract

This paper describes the development and design of vision-based remote controlled cellular robots. Cellular robots have numerous applications in industrial problems where simple inexpensive robots can be used to perform different tasks that involve covering a large working space. These robots are controlled based on the visual input from one or more cameras that monitor the working area. As a result, a robust control of the robot trajectory is achieved without depending on the camera calibration. The remote user simply specifies a target point in the image to indicate the robot final position. We describe the complete system at various levels: the visual information processing, the robot characteristics and the closed loop control system design, including the stability analysis when the camera location is unknown. Results are presented and discussed.