Estimation of contact position between object and environment based on probing of robot manipulator

Their are positional and geometric uncertainties in assembly operation. In order to perform an assembly operation by robot successfully, it is necessary to estimate the correct position and geometric information of a fixed environment. This paper describes a technique that can estimate the contact position and geometric information between the object and the environment from a number of positions and orientations of a moving object, which are measured while the object is dexterously slid and rotated on the environment around the contact position. It is assumed that the environment and object are polyhedra. There are three kinds of basic contact pairs when the two polyhedra are in contact with each other. Corresponding to these basic contact pairs, three kinds of estimation approaches are proposed. By these estimation approaches, the environment position and geometric information on contacting parts can be estimated successfully. Experimental verification on the proposed approaches is performed and its results are outlined