ROBOT GUIDANCE USING ULTRASONIC ARRAYS

The flexibility of robots can be considerably increased by having sens ors that can detect the location and orientation of the components tha t are being manipulated by the robots. Vision systems have been widely applied to this problem, but there has been very little reported work on the use of ultrasonic sensors. This article reports the use of nov el ultrasonic sensors that have been manufactured in-house to measure the range and bearing of a target and guide the robot in a pick and pl ace operation. The configuration of the transducer is described as wel l as the signal processing method employed. Experimental results are g iven and future developments and applications of the system are descri bed. (C) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.