Computer vision-guided robotic system for electrical power lines maintenance

Jack Tremblay; T. Laliberte; Regis Houde; Michel Pelletier; Clement M. Gosselin; Denis Laurendeau

doi:10.1117/12.227933

1 December 1995 Computer vision-guided robotic system for electrical power lines maintenance

Jack Tremblay, T. Laliberte, Regis Houde, Michel Pelletier, Clement M. Gosselin, Denis Laurendeau

Proceedings Volume 2590, Telemanipulator and Telepresence Technologies II; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.227933
Event: Photonics East '95, 1995, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract

The paper presents several modules of a computer vision assisted robotic system for the maintenance of live electrical power lines. The basic scene of interest is composed of generic components such as a crossarm, a power line and a porcelain insulator. The system is under the supervision of an operator which validates each subtask. The system uses a 3D range finder mounted at the end effector of a 6 dof manipulator for the acquisition of range data on the scene. Since more than one view is required to obtain enough information on the scene, a view integration procedure is applied to the data in order to merge the information in a single reference frame. A volumetric description of the scene, in this case an octree, is built using the range data. The octree is transformed into an occupancy grid which is used for avoiding collisions between the manipulator and the components of the scene during the line manipulation step. The collision avoidance module uses the occupancy grid to create a discrete electrostatic potential field representing the various goals (e.g. objects of interest) and obstacles in the scene. The algorithm takes into account the articular limits of the robot and uses a redundant manipulator to ensure that the collision avoidance constraints do not compete with the task which is to reach a given goal with the end-effector. A pose determination algorithm called Iterative Closest Point is presented. The algorithm allows to compute the pose of the various components of the scene and allows the robot to manipulate these components safely. The system has been tested on an actual scene. The manipulation was successfully implemented using a synchronized geometry range finder mounted on a PUMA 760 robot manipulator under the control of Cartool.

Citation Download Citation

Jack Tremblay, T. Laliberte, Regis Houde, Michel Pelletier, Clement M. Gosselin, and Denis Laurendeau "Computer vision-guided robotic system for electrical power lines maintenance", Proc. SPIE 2590, Telemanipulator and Telepresence Technologies II, (1 December 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.227933

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