Pieces Separation Applied to a RV-2AJ Industrial Manipulator

Abstract

The objective of this work is to create a system for separating types of pieces for didactic purposes. An artificial vision system applied to a manipulator was used to perform this task of classifying and separating the pieces, through the use of digital image processing. The vision system uses a camera attached to the robot's end-effector, whose objective is to identify the area, perimeter and position of the centroid of the pieces to be separated. The separation of objects is performed between two classes: with round and non-round shapes. The tests were carried out with objects such as screws and nuts. After obtaining the positions of the objects to be separated by the vision system, some characteristics of these related to the reference system of the robot base are determined. Some difficulties were observed in the recognition of objects related to the colours and lighting conditions of the separation environment. To reduce these problems, black colour objects were used in order to reduce the reflectance. Another problem encountered in the separation process is related to the relative position of objects. In this case, two or more objects can be identified as a single object, depending on their relative positions. The system classifies with a rate of hits greater than 95%.