A Real-time 3D Pose Based Visual Servoing Implementation for an Autonomous Mobile Robot Manipulator

Today, the manipulation of objects by mobile robots is still a challenging task. This task is commonly decomposed on three stages: a) approaching to the objects, b) path planning and trajectory execution of the manipulator arm and finally c) fine tuning and grasping. In this work is presented an implementation of a 3D pose visual servoing for an autonomous mobile manipulator dealing with the last stage of the manipulation task (fine tuning and grasping). The methodology proposed consists of three steps: a) beginning with a fast monocular image segmentation, followed by b) 3D model reconstruction and finally c) pose estimation to feedback fine tuning manipulation control loop. Objects and end-effector are colored in different colors and their models are supposed to be known. Our mobile manipulator prototype consists of a stereo camera under a binocular stand-alone configuration and an anthropomorphic 7DoF arm with a parallel end-effector (gripper). Our methodology runs in real time and is suitable to perform continuous visual servoing. Experimental results are reported. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of CIIECC 2013