CAD-based 3D robot vision

This paper describes a technique for developing a CAD model-based 3-D robot vision system which can be used for recognizing and assembling parts or objects on an automated assembly line. A notable feature of the system is that a single eye-on-hand configuration can be used for computing disparity data and stereo matching between two 2-D images obtained by an accurately moving camera mounted on the end-arm of robot. An approach to stereo matching based on the edge-relation is proposed. The image linear feature and edge-relation set are translated to the 3-D space, and geometric models residing in a database are then used to obtain possible solutions. A novel method of computing sparse depth information is developed for matching two 3-D objects. Experimental result has shown the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed technique. The system has been successfully implemented for recognizing a class of industrial parts.