Title :
Vision-guided robotic assembly using uncalibrated vision
Author :
Zhang, Biao ; Wang, Jianjun ; Rossano, Gregory ; Martinez, Carlos
Author_Institution :
Corp. Res. Center, ABB Inc., Windsor, CT, USA
Abstract :
Many consumer and industrial electronics assemblies are predominantly repetitive manual tasks due to low startup costs and high flexibility. This allows the producer to easily scale back, increase or modify production to respond to the rapidly changing marketplace. However with the rising wages in low-cost countries, and ergonomics and other health concerns, the electronics industries look the automation solution again. The challenge for electronics product assembly automation is how to precisely aligning assembly features on small component for small part tight tolerance assemblies in quickly reconfigurable production. Traditional automation or teach/repeat robotic automation is often prohibitive because of costly fixtures and too time consuming setup and ramp-up. This paper introduces a vision-guided robotic assembly method using uncalibrated vision. The conventional methods of vision-guided robotics in assembly automation solutions (e.g. traditional calibration and visual servoing) cannot perform the assemblies with the grasp error and visually inaccessible assembly features. The proposed vision-guided assembly system based on camera space manipulation (CSM) method, on the other hand, relies on a local calibration method to achieve the high accuracy alignment for the final assembly. Experimental verification is performed to test the accuracy of the alignment, the robustness to grasp error, and easy reconfiguration. Under one camera configuration, the 2D vision-guided assembly robot system successfully assembly the ideal test parts within sub-millimeter tolerance with no manual calibration.
Keywords :
calibration; electronics industry; fixtures; robot vision; robotic assembly; 2D vision-guided assembly robot system; CSM method; accuracy alignment; assembly automation solutions; assembly features; calibration method; camera configuration; camera space manipulation method; consumer; costly fixtures; electronics industry; electronics product assembly automation; ergonomics; experimental verification; grasp error; health concerns; industrial electronics assembly; low-cost country; manual calibration; reconfigurable production; repetitive manual tasks; robotic automation; startup costs; submillimeter tolerance; tight tolerance assembly; uncalibrated vision; vision-guided robotic assembly; vision-guided robotics; Assembly; Cameras; Feature extraction; Robot kinematics; Robot vision systems; Visualization; Assembly; Vision-guided Robotics; industrial robotics;
Conference_Titel :
Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), 2011 International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Beijing
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-8113-2
DOI :
10.1109/ICMA.2011.5985778