Industrial part localization and grasping using a robotic arm guided by 2D monocular vision

Purpose The welding areas of the workpiece must be consistent with high precision to ensure the welding success during the welding of automobile parts. The purpose of this paper is to design an automatic high-precision locating and grasping system for robotic arm guided by 2D monocular vision to meet the requirements of automatic operation and high-precision welding. Design/methodology/approach A nonlinear multi-parallel surface calibration method based on adaptive k-segment master curve algorithm is proposed, which improves the efficiency of the traditional single camera calibration algorithm and accuracy of calibration. At the same time, the multi-dimension feature of target based on k-mean clustering constraint is proposed to improve the robustness and precision of registration. Findings A method of automatic locating and grasping based on 2D monocular vision is provided for robot arm, which includes camera calibration method and target locating method. Practical implications The system has been integrated into the welding robot of an automobile company in China. Originality/value A method of automatic locating and grasping based on 2D monocular vision is proposed, which makes the robot arm have automatic grasping function, and improves the efficiency and precision of automatic grasp of robot arm.