A VISUAL SERVOING APPROACH FOR ROBOTIC FRUIT HARVESTING IN THE PRESENCE OF PARAMETRIC UNCERTAINTIES

JUAN D. GAMBA; PAL  JOHAN FROM; ANTONIO  CANDEA LEITE

doi:10.20906/CBA2022/451

JUAN D. GAMBA Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro;
PAL JOHAN FROM Norwegian University of Life Sciences
ANTONIO CANDEA LEITE Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20906/CBA2022/451

Keywords: Visual servoing, Agricultural robots, Automatic fruit harvesting, Kinematic control

Abstract

In this paper, we address the robust visual servoing problem for a fixed target using an eyein-
hand camera configuration, when the camera calibration parameters are uncertain. The proposed solution
combines the image-based visual servoing (IBVS) and the position-based visual servoing (PBVS) approaches to
take advantage of both strengths to perform successful robotic fruit harvesting tasks. An image-based detection and recognition method, based on SURF and RANSAC algorithms, is used to extract the image feature of the fruit for the vision-based control algorithm. A kinematic control design, with robustness properties, is employed to cope with the uncertainties in the calibration parameters of the camera-robot system. To deal with possible singular configurations of the robot arm, that may arise during the task execution, we employ the Damped Least-Squares (DLS) inverse method. Experimental results, obtained with a Mitsubishi robot arm RV-2AJ carrying out strawberry harvesting tasks, are included to illustrate the performance and feasibility of the proposed methodology.