Ca. Richards et Np. Papanikolopoulos, DETECTION AND TRACKING FOR ROBOTIC VISUAL SERVOING SYSTEMS, Robotics and computer-integrated manufacturing, 13(2), 1997, pp. 101-120
Robot manipulators require knowledge about their environment in order
to perform their desired actions. In several robotic tasks, vision sen
sors play a critical role by providing the necessary quantity and qual
ity of information regarding the robot's environment. For example, ''v
isual servoing'' algorithms may control a robot manipulator in order t
o track moving objects that are being imaged by a camera. Current visu
al servoing systems often lack the ability to detect automatically obj
ects that appear within the camera's field of view. In this research,
we present a robust ''figure/ground'' framework for visually detecting
objects of interest. An important contribution of this research is a
collection of optimization schemes that allow tbe detection framework
to operate within the real-time Limits of visual servoing systems. The
most significant of these schemes involves the use of ''spontaneous''
and ''continuous'' domains. The number and location of continuous dom
ains are,allowed to change over time, adjusting to the dynamic conditi
ons of the detection process. We have developed actual servoing system
s in order to test the framework's feasibility and to demonstrate its
usefulness for visually controlling a robot manipulator. (C) 1997 Else
vier Science Ltd.