Vision Controlled Mobile Manipulator

Vision technology for robotics has broadened the capabilities of robotic vision system to allow for vision based guidance of the robot arm, complex inspection for close dimensional tolerances, and improved recognition and part location capabilities. The objective of the present work is to develop logic and enhance user friendly programmability for pattern recognition and feature extraction of the objects for manipulative task and design and development of a low cost stepper motor controlled manipulator for pick and place operation. A PC based general purpose image processing system has been employed for pattern matching, alignment, gauging, blob analysis, inspection, identification, object location, object recognition and feature extraction purposes. The mobile manipulator has been designed and fabricated for using in material handling application. The robot links are moved by the individual stepper motors which are placed at every joint for link rotation and also tool pitch and toot roll. The pulses are sent to stepper motors through a PC based controller. The jobs are moving on a belt conveyer whose speed is controlled through DC motors.