Implementation of a Visual Servoing System for Evaluation of Robotic Refueling Applications

摘要

The threats of dangerous environments and projected cuts in military personnel, combined with advances in robotics and sensors, have caught the attention of the United States Air Force. The Flight Dynamics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has been conducting research into concepts for performing aircraft ground refueling using robotic systems. The main sensor for a robotic refueler applications is vision. Visual information received from TV camera mounted to the refueling boom, provides the feedback data necessary for employing visual servo control techniques. This feedback data, the refueling port's centroid and depth, is used to visually guide the robot refueler to the refueling port. This research effort designs and integrates a visual servo control scheme for a PUMA 560 robot arm that derives its control information from a Machine Intelligence Corporation vision system.