Active rough shape estimation of unknown objects

This paper presents a method to determine the rough shape of an object. This is a step in the development of a ldquoone click grasping toolrdquo, a grasping tool of everyday-life objects for an assistant robot dedicated to elderly or disabled. The goal is to determine the quadric that approximates at best the shape of an unknown object using multi-view measurements. Non-linear optimization techniques are considered to achieve this goal. Since multiple views are necessary, an active vision process is considered in order to minimize the uncertainty on the estimated parameters and determine the next best view. Finally, results that show the validity of the approach are presented.