Biorobotics Laboratory BioRob

Jennifer Meinen - Semester Project Winter 2007-2008

Visual location of a mark by the robot Aibo

Introduction
The goal of this project is to locate a mark using a camera, and then use this information to define a special action. More precisely I will work on Aibo which is a robotic pet produced by Sony, and use its camera to identify and locate a mark. Then if Aibo sees a mark it must move one of its paws onto the mark. The solution developed must be tested and validated in simulation. Finally it also needs to be implemented on the real robot Aibo.
Solutions used
The principle problem was to find the 3D coordinate of the mark. We suppose that Aibo and the mark lay on the same plane and that the camera can be considered as a pinhole camera model. We can determine the physical distance to which corresponds a pixel knowing the characteristics of the camera. Finally using referential transformation and the fact that the mark is on the floor, the 3D coordinate can be determined.
The paw is moved using inverse kinematics.
Download