Integrated Vision/Force Robot System for Shelving and Retrieving of Imprecisely Placed Objects

This work suggests a new approach of robot system to shelve and retrieve imprecisely placed objects with the help of vision and force feedback according to their alphabetic/numeric codification system. A practical example of shelving and retrieving tasks is automation of libraries. Previously, automation of libraries was based on the complicated transport mechanisms and also on robotic systems without using the vision or force/torque system. Hence, the system will bring additional drawbacks which can be eliminated by using vision system; these drawbacks cause the waste of energy and need more maintenance. In this work the proposed vision system detects objects, position/orientation, characterizes and classifies the objects, identify the codes assigned to objects (SIFT features), and provides automatically decisions which define the art of the control (when vision or force feedback should be used). The proposed control can perform position control only or combination of force-vision control depending on the conditions of the task and the environment.