Simulators for Image-Based Control Architecture

Abstract

The necessity of designing flexible and versatile systems is one of the most current trends in robotic research. In the first part of this chapter, a simulator for servoing application using point features and image moments as visual features is presented. Including visual servoing techniques in an existing robotic system is a very challenging task. Hence, in the second part, a solution is given for extending the capabilities of a 6 DOF manipulator robot, for visual servoing system development. An image-based control architecture is designed and a real-time implementation on an ABB robot and a Fanuc robot is developed. The image acquisition and processing together with the computing of the image-based control law were implemented in MATLAB$^{\textregistered }$. A new type of robot driving interface that links the robots’ controller with MATLAB$^{\textregistered }$ environment is proposed. The robustness and stability of the visual feature (point features and image moments) based control laws are tested in multiple experiments. Experimental results reveal very good performances of the real-time visual servoing system.