Recently, smart factories have attracted much attention as a result of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Existing factory automation technologies are generally designed for simple repetition without using vision sensors. Even small object assemblies are still dependent on manual work. To satisfy the needs for replacing the existing system with new technology such as bin picking and visual servoing, precision and real-time application should be core. Therefore in our work we focused on the core elements by using deep learning algorithm to detect and classify the target object for real-time and analyzing the object features. We chose YOLO CNN which is capable of real-time working and combining the two tasks as mentioned above though there are lots of good deep learning algorithms such as Mask R-CNN and Fast R-CNN. Then through the line and inside features extracted from target object, we can obtain final outline and estimate object posture.

This paper presents a vision-based relative pose estimation algorithm and its validation through both numerical and hardware experiments. The algorithm and the hardware system were simultaneously designed considering actual experimental conditions. Two estimation techniques were utilized to estimate relative pose; one was a nonlinear least square method for initial estimation, and the other was an extended Kalman Filter for subsequent on-line estimation. A measurement model of the vision sensor and equations of motion including nonlinear perturbations were utilized in the estimation process. Numerical simulations were performed and analyzed for both the autonomous docking and formation flying scenarios. A configuration of LED-based beacons was designed to avoid measurement singularity, and its structural information was implemented in the estimation algorithm. The proposed algorithm was verified again in the experimental environment by using the Autonomous Spacecraft Test Environment for Rendezvous In proXimity (ASTERIX) facility. Additionally, a laser distance meter was added to the estimation algorithm to improve the relative position estimation accuracy. Throughout this study, the performance required for autonomous docking could be presented by confirming the change in estimation accuracy with respect to the level of measurement error. In addition, hardware experiments confirmed the effectiveness of the suggested algorithm and its applicability to actual tasks in the real world.

One of the most frequently performed tasks in human-robot interaction (HRI), intelligent vehicles, and security systems is face related applications such as face recognition, facial expression recognition, driver state monitoring, and gaze estimation. In these applications, accurate head pose estimation is an important issue. However, conventional methods have been lacking in accuracy, robustness or processing speed in practical use. In this paper, we propose a novel method for estimating head pose with a monocular camera. The proposed algorithm is based on a deep neural network for multi-task learning using a small grayscale image. This network jointly detects multi-view faces and estimates head pose in hard environmental conditions such as illumination change and large pose change. The proposed framework quantitatively and qualitatively outperforms the state-of-the-art method with an average head pose mean error of less than 4.5° in real-time.

We present a region-based approach for accurate pose estimation of small mechanical components. Our algorithm consists of two key phases: Multi-view object co-segmentation and pose estimation. In the first phase, we explain an automatic method to extract binary masks of a target object captured from multiple viewpoints. For initialization, we assume the target object is bounded by the convex volume of interest defined by a few user inputs. The co-segmented target object shares the same geometric representation in space, and has distinctive color models from those of the backgrounds. In the second phase, we retrieve a 3D model instance with correct upright orientation, and estimate a relative pose of the object observed from images. Our energy function, combining region and boundary terms for the proposed measures, maximizes the overlapping regions and boundaries between the multi-view co-segmentations and projected masks of the reference model. Based on high-quality co-segmentations consistent across all different viewpoints, our final results are accurate model indices and pose parameters of the extracted object. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method using various examples.

In this study, a model-referenced underwater navigation algorithm is proposed for high-precise underwater navigation using monocular vision near underwater structures. The main idea of this navigation algorithm is that a 3D model-based pose estimation is combined with the inertial navigation using an extended Kalman filter (EKF). The spatial information obtained from the navigation algorithm is utilized for enabling the underwater robot to navigate near underwater structures whose geometric models are known a priori. For investigating the performance of the proposed approach the model-referenced navigation algorithm was applied to an underwater robot and a set of experiments was carried out in a water tank.

In this paper, we propose a method for estimating the pose of the camera using a rectangle feature utilized for the visual SLAM. A warped rectangle feature as a quadrilateral in the image by the perspective transformation is reconstructed by the Coupled Line Camera algorithm. In order to fully reconstruct a rectangle in the real world coordinate, the distance between the features and the camera is needed. The distance in the real world coordinate can be measured by using a stereo camera. Using properties of the line camera, the physical size of the rectangle feature can be induced from the distance. The correspondence between the quadrilateral in the image and the rectangle in the real world coordinate can restore the relative pose between the camera and the feature through obtaining the homography. In order to evaluate the performance, we analyzed the result of proposed method with its reference pose in Gazebo robot simulator.

This paper presents a method of improving the pose recognition accuracy of objects by using Kinect sensor. First, by using the SURF algorithm, which is one of the most widely used local features point algorithms, we modify inner parameters of the algorithm for efficient object recognition. The proposed method is adjusting the distance between the box filter, modifying Hessian matrix, and eliminating improper key points. In the second, the object orientation is estimated based on the homography. Finally the novel approach of Auto-scaling method is proposed to improve accuracy of object pose estimation. The proposed algorithm is experimentally tested with objects in the plane and its effectiveness is validated.

This paper presents a localization system using ceiling images in a large indoor environment. For a system with low cost and complexity, we propose a single camera based system that utilizes ceiling images acquired from a camera installed to point upwards. For reliable operation, we propose a method using hybrid features which include natural landmarks in a natural scene and artificial landmarks observable in an infrared ray domain. Compared with previous works utilizing only infrared based features, our method reduces the required number of artificial features as we exploit both natural and artificial features. In addition, compared with previous works using only natural scene, our method has an advantage in the convergence speed and robustness as an observation of an artificial feature provides a crucial clue for robot pose estimation. In an experiment with challenging situations in a real environment, our method was performed impressively in terms of the robustness and accuracy. To our knowledge, our method is the first ceiling vision based localization method using features from both visible and infrared rays domains. Our system can be easily utilized with a variety of service robot applications in a large indoor environment.