Inclusion of a Visual Servoing Project into an Undergraduate Robotic Course

Abstract

This paper describes the inclusion of a visual servoing project into an undergraduate robotic course. The robotic platform is a vision-enhanced VEX robot, constructed by integrating the commercially-available VEX robot with the Raspberry PI single-board computer (plus its camera module). This project allows students to go through several key steps in a vision-based control task, including camera calibration, depth recovery, image processing, communication, and basic robot control. Vision-based control, which was once a graduate-level subject, is now exposed to undergraduate students. This project will strengthen students' understanding of relevant topics, expose them to more complex robotic systems, provide them opportunities to program and design in multi-disciplinary areas, and prepare them with a more complete set of knowledge, skills, and hands-on experience to benefit other activities they do at school and beyond. Students' feedback confirms that this project is effective in enhancing their learning. The usage of commercially-available robotic kits & components allows this project to be easily produced at other institutions.