Object contour following task based on integrated information of vision and force sensor

This paper presents object contour following task based on integrated information of both vision and force sensor. In this paper, first, using vision sensor (1) the distance to the contour from the center of the image and the angle of the contour is detected by the relative area method that measures the image features of interest directly from the thresholded image without any intermediate steps. (2) A set of contour edge points is detected by canny edge detector. Then, the curvature of contour is calculated by the tangent contour model. Second, force information is obtained from a strain-gauge force sensor. It constantly control contact force between tool and object of task. Finally, object contour following task is performed by a mobile robot with manipulator at a straight line section and a curved line section of object contour.