Developments in Visual Servoing for Mobile Manipulation

Abstract

A new trend in mobile robotics is to integrate visual information in feedback control for facilitating autonomous grasping and manipulation. The result is a visual servo system, which is quite beneficial in autonomous mobile manipulation. In view of mobility, it has wider application than the traditional visual servoing in manipulators with fixed base. In this paper, the state of art of vision-guided robotic applications is presented along with the associated hardware. Next, two classical approaches of visual servoing: image-based visual servoing (IBVS) and position-based visual servoing (PBVS) are reviewed; and their advantages and drawbacks in applying to a mobile manipulation system are discussed. A general concept of modeling a visual servo system is demonstrated. Some challenges in developing visual servo systems are discussed. Finally, a practical application of mobile manipulation system which is developed for applications of search and rescue and homecare robotics is introduced.