Practical implementation of a successful vision guided robotics (VGR) application requires an understanding of general architecture and design, lighting and imaging, 2D and 3D technologies, robots and calibration. These and other important broad concepts have been discussed in previous articles. In this tutorial, we dig deeper into programming and execution to examine some basic machine vision tools for 2D VGR, and how to apply them for successful applications. This important topic is not just for engineers and programmers. Anyone involved with the design, management, and execution of VGR applications will benefit from a better understanding of these fundamental application techniques.
Certainly it is critical in a VGR application to carefully consider all of the broad system design and specification topics mentioned above. At some point, however, it is all about the software. The competent selection and application of available machine vision tools ultimately defines the capability, reliability, and performance of a VGR system.