A Study on a Dynamically Reconfigurable Robotic System (14th Report, Error Recovery in Assembly of Self-Organizing Manipulator Using Active Visual and Force Sensing)

In this report, the method of active sensing is applied to assembly work of a self-organizing manipulator which we introduced in previous research. We placed a 6 axis force/torque sensor in the wrist of the manipulator and a CCD camera into the hand of another manipulator. With cooperation of hand and eye, haman beings can perform a variety of versatile tasks. The eyes guide the motion of the hand, while the hand moves to make the object more easily seen. We attempt to construct a system which works in the same way as a human being. In assembly work, many types of contact status of cells are analyzed. The scene simplification is based on the cooperative motion of the camera and manipulator. We integrate a vision system, a manipulator, and force/torque in to a hand- eye working system. The method of average visible rate is proposed to evaluate the viewpoint of the camera. A strategy for planning the assembly work is presented for the cellular type of self-organizing manipulator system. The efficiency of the proposed system is shown by experiments. © 1993, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. All rights reserved.