Virtual manipulator-based binocular stereo vision positioning system and errors modelling

There is a bottleneck of mobile robots positioning technologies for uncertain goals in complex field environment. Owing to the disturbance of the environment, the objects are hard to be located precisely by robot manipulator. Aiming at the positioning problem, binocular stereo vision system and positioning principle of the picking manipulator in virtual environment (VE) were proposed and expatiated upon; in addition, the manipulator positioning model was built in VE, and the manipulator positioning simulation system was developed by Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0; and the binocular stereo vision system platform with a three-coordinate guideway positioning was constructed for test; what’s more the error sources of vision positioning system was analyzed, and the camera system error was established; the mathematical model of experimental error and the camera calibration matching error were also found; with the developed robot manipulator positioning simulation software and vision system hardware, an experimental platform of positioning system was constructed, and using the platform, the stereo vision data was mapped to the manipulator and was guiding the accurate positioning in VE. Finally, experiment of positioning error compensation was carried out. Results of simulation in VE and the experiment showed that the vision positioning method was feasible for positioning in the field environment; it can be applied to control robot operation and to correct the positioning errors in real-time, especially to the long-range precision modelling and error compensation of robots.