Chessboard and Pieces Detection for Janggi Chess Playing Robot

Abstract

Vision system is an indispensable part of constructing the chess-playing robot. Chessboard detection and pieces localization in the captured image of robot's camera are important steps for processes followed such as pieces recognition, move calculation, and robot controlling. We present a method for detecting the Janggi chessboard and pieces based on the edge and color feature. Hough transform combined with line extraction is used for segmenting the chessboard and warping it to form the rectangle shape in order to detect and interpolate the lines of chessboard. Then we detect the existence of pieces and their side by applying the saliency map and checking the color distribution at piece locations. While other methods either work only with the empty chessboard or do not care about the piece existence, our method could detect sufficiently side and position of pieces as well as lines of the chessboard even if the occlusion happens.