ABSTRACTA telerobotic system adapted for tracking and handling amoving object comprises a robot manipulator, a video monitor, animage processor, hand controls and a computer. The robotmanipulator comprises a movable robotic arm having an effector forhandling an object, a drive system for moving the arm in responseto arm input signals, sensors for sensing the position of the armand for generating arm output signals which characterize thedynamic motion behaviour of the arm, and a video camera carried bythe arm. The camera responds to motion of the movinq objectwithin the field of view of the camera. The video monitorreceives an input video signal from the video camera, fordisplaying an image of the object to a human operator. The imageprocessor is responsive to the output signal of the camera, and iscapable of acquiring and pre-processing an image of the object ona Frame by frame basis. The hand control is capable of generatinga hand control output signal in response to input from a humanoperator. The computer generates arm input signals and isdisposed between the hand control means, the robot manipulator,and image processr. The computer receives (i) output signalsfrom the image processor and (ii) the arm output signals and (iii)the hand control output signal and generates arm input signals inresponse to the received signals whereby the arm tracks the motionof the object.
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