Manipulation support system for large serving robots

This work deals with a support system for large serving robots like container stackers or cranes. The ambition is thereby that the effector of the robot grabs or stacks automatically containers in order to assist especially untrained operators. The robot is equipped with a special sensor system to capture the container in question. The paper presents two different sensor apparatus. The first configuration consists of a stereo camera, which is mounted on the jib of the robot. Image acquisition algorithms basing on stereoscopic methods calculate thereby the exact three dimensional location of the container out of the gauged information. The second sensor arrangement is installed on the effector, and detects with the aid of image and distance sensors, the 3D position and orientation of the container edge. The obtained reference coordinates are taken for a closed loop control. The paper goes into detail concerning the path planning method and the controller architecture.