1 Iterative Estimation of the Relative Spatial Poses of a Robot End Effector and Target Object

A technique for nding the relative spatial pose between a robotic end eeector and a target object to be grasped without a priori knowledge of the spatial relationship between the camera and the robot is presented. A previously developed technique is used to determine the pose of the end eeector and a target object relative to the camera. The transformation between the camera's and the robot's coordinate frames is computed dynamically. The spatial transformation between the robot end eeector and the target object is computed with respect to the robot's coordinate system. The algorithm was demonstrated using a 5-degree of freedom robot and an RGB camera system. The camera can be dynamically positioned without concern for an assumed spatial relationship between the camera and robot allowing optimization of the view of the object and the end eeector. Further, the iterative nature of the grasping algorithm reduces the eeects of camera calibration errors.