Robot Eye-In-Hand Using Fiber Optics
Arun Agrawal, Max Epstein · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1984
For many applications, eye-in-hand robot vision has several advantages over the use of a fixed external camera. Even smaller solid state cameras are too bulky for gripper mounting and, therefore, limit the gripper's movement for many operations. A novel approach for eye-in-hand robot vision is proposed utilizing, a) coherent fiber-optic bundles for carrying light from an object to be imaged, and b) photodiodes to convert this light into electrical signals for processing. The feasibility of this concept has been experimentally demonstrated by developing a fiber-optic eye-in-hand system, mounting the scanner head on a gripper and obtaining good images under back and front light conditions.