Application of Stereo Vision on Determination of End-Effector Position and Orientation of Manipulators

the main idea of this paper is to present application of stereo vision approach to determine position and orientation of end-effector of mechanical manipulators. Stereo vision is a technique based on inferring depth of an object from two cameras. A stereo vision test set up that is made of two parallel CMOS cameras is provided and USB port is used to transmit image data to the computer. Experimental tests are exerted for 6R mechanical manipulator where the end-effector moves on circular trajectory and Scout mobile robot to move a predefined optimal trajectory. The image processing algorithm, matching algorithm and triangulation calculations are optimized to decrease time required for matching procedure. The results illustrate that the measurement error is less than 1 mm. Because of rapid image processing algorithm; proposed method can be used to detect end-effector in dynamic trajectories. This stereo vision set up can be applied easily as measuring unit in a closed loop control system. Keywords-Manipulators; End-Effector; Positioning; Orientation; Stereo Vision