A ranging method based on triangulation for robotic control

A ranging method is presented that is being developed at the Robotics and Automation Laboratory at R.P.I. The method can be used to locate objects of different shape in 3-D space. A camera at a fixed position is observing a scene and a light source attached to a robot arm sending a beam of light to the scene represent the hardware used. The position of the camera and the light source along with the picture of the scene provide enough information to compute the reflection point of the light beam in the scene. An error analysis of the process, the robot arm and the camera system are presented and the results of the implementation discussed.