Vision-based control for mining automation

The mining industry is highly suitable for the application of robotics and automation technology since the work is both arduous and dangerous. Visual servoing is a means of integrating non-contact visual sensing with machine control to augment or replace operator based control. This article describe s two of our current mining automation projects in order to demonstrate som e, perhaps unusual, applications of visual servoing, and also to illustrate some very real problems with robust computer vision.