The issues and approaches of a robot multi-sensor integration

The objective of this paper is to develop an intelligent robot system through the integration of multiple sensors into robot tasks. The investigation is based on a Unimation PUMA 560 robot employing various external sensors. These sensors include overhead vision, eye-in-hand vision, proximity, tactile array, position, force/torque, cross-fire, overload and slip. The efficient machine representation of acquired sensory knowledge will enable robots to deal with the "real world". The general paradigm of a sensor data fusion system has been developed. This system will allows the robot to handle uncertainty in sensory data as well as to verify and recover sensor errors.