Flexible Camera Skins for Robot Perception and Control

Abstract

Flexible Camera Skins for Robot Perception and Control focuses on the novel concept of

deformable camera skins for robot perception and control. It generalizes the biological concept

of oculi compositi (compound eyes e.g. of flies like Calliphora vicina) to extended and arbitrarily

deformable shapes and spatial distributions of measurement accuracy. Emphasis is on the

processing part for information extraction and fusion as well as dynamic situational

vision-based control of (potentially deformable) camera skin shapes and robot motion. Two

technical realizations and demonstration scenarios are envisaged with different time horizons

and risks from combination of off-the-shelf-cameras to layers of opto-electronic devices. The

approach consists in combination of sensor data fusion, vision-based control, attentional

selection and system design targeting the main challenges of camera skins. The outcome of

the project is directly measurable by the quality of dynamic camera skin configuration and

visually controlled robot trajectories. The project contributes health promotion due to reduced

task-load and increased safety in human-robot interaction due to improved robotic perception

and predictive planning capabilities.