Stability issues in sensor switching visual servoing

This paper is concerned with camera switching during a visual servoing task using a multi-camera vision system. The concept of dynamical sensor switching is introduced based on image-based and position-based Jacobian transpose control architectures. Stability is discussed extending the Lyapunov-based proof of Kelly et al.(1) to switched system stability using a common Lyapunov function for ideal target and camera models and multiple Lyapunov functions if parameter perturbations are present. Furthermore, an energy supervised switching scheme is proposed as a novel generic extension to switched system visual servoing which significantly reduces the control error only requiring local measurements of control error and system state. The contribution of this work are stable switching visual servoing strategies which facilitate instantaneous adjustments of control performance and dynamical device switches in case of task requirements or sensor breakdown. Further benefits are a possible reduction of the pose error variance over the operating distance and avoidance of singularities resulting from field of view limitations. The switching control schemes are illustrated by simulation studies.