Object taking out apparatus

• US 20040019405A1
• Filed: 06/26/2003
• Published: 01/29/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fanuc Ltd (Fanuc Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fanuc Ltd (Fanuc Corporation)
• Inventors: Ban, Kazunori, Kanno, Ichiro
• Granted Patent: US 6,845,296 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/213
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1697 Vision controlled systems
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/40053 Pick 3-D object from pile of objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0014 Image feed-back for automatic industrial control, e.g. robot with camera robots B25J19/023
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30164 Workpiece; Machine component
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/74 involving reference images or patches

Abstract

An object taking out apparatus capable of taking out randomly stacked objects with high reliability and low cost. An image of one of workpieces as objects of taking out at a reference position is captured by a video camera. Whole feature information and partial feature information are extracted from the captured image by a model creating section and a partial model creating section, respectively, and stored in a memory with information on partial feature detecting regions. An image of randomly stacked workpieces is captured and analyzed to determine positions/orientations of images of the respective workpieces using the whole feature information. Partial feature detecting regions are set to the images of the respective workpieces using the determined positions/orientations of the respective workpieces and information on partial feature detecting regions stored in the memory. Partial features of the respective workpieces are detected in the partial feature detecting regions using the partial feature information, and priority of taking out the workpiece is determined based on results of detection of the partial features. A robot is controlled to successively take out the object of the first priority using data of the position/orientation of the object of the first priority.

Claims

1. An object taking out apparatus for taking out a plurality of objects one by one, comprising:

image capturing means for capturing an image of the plurality of objects;

storing means for storing information on a whole feature representing a whole shape of the object, information on partial features representing one or more partial shapes of the object, and information on partial feature detecting regions defined for detection of the partial features of the object;

object detecting means for determining positions/orientations of images of the respective objects in the image of the plurality of objects captured by said image capturing means using the information on the whole feature of the object stored in said storing means;

partial feature detecting region setting means for setting partial feature detecting regions for the images of the respective objects based on the positions/orientations of the respective objects determined by said object detecting means and the information on the partial feature detecting regions stored in said storing means;

partial feature detecting means for detecting the partial features of the objects in the set respective partial feature detecting regions using the information of the partial features stored in the storing means;

priority determining means for determining priority of taking out the object based on evaluation of detection of the partial features of the objects by said partial feature detecting means; and

a robot for successively taking out the objects according to the priority determined by said priority determining means.

2. An object taking out apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said priority determining means evaluates the result of detection of the partial features of the object by the number of successes in detecting the partial features and determines the priority of taking out the object based on the number of successes.

3. An object taking out apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said priority determining means evaluates the result of detection of the partial features of the object using a matching index representing a degree of matching of a partial image of the object and the corresponding partial feature in the partial feature detecting region, and determines the priority of taking out the object based on the sum of the machining indexes.

4. An object taking out apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said priority determining means evaluates the result of detection of the partial features using a matching index representing a degree of matching of a partial image of the object and the corresponding partial feature in the partial feature detecting region, and significance of the partial feature detecting region with respect to the whole feature of the object, and determines the priority of taking out the object based on the sum of products of the matching indexes and the significance of the partial features.