Relative Pose Estimation for Alignment of Long Cylindrical Components Based on Microscopic Vision

In this paper, an efficient relative pose estimation method based on multimicroscopic vision is presented for the alignment of long cylindrical components in six degree-of-freedom in the 3-D space. First, the relative pose estimation method measures the relative orientation errors between components in a coarse-to-fine manner. The coarse relative orientation estimation reflects the average orientation difference among multiedges and it promises the relative orientation errors can converge to a limited extent rapidly. The fine relative orientation estimation is to detect whether the components will interfere with each other in the insertion process and it provides higher orientation measurement accuracy under multilateral constraint circumstance. The method to determine the invisible feature lines of long cylindrical components of prism shape with odd edges for relative position error estimation is discussed in detail. Afterward, the relative position between components is measured by side-view cameras using the feature lines. In addition, the method to calibrate the optical axis of microscopic camera is also presented. The relative pose estimation method can reliably estimate the relative pose between long cylindrical components of prism shape with odd edges. Alignment experiments and results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed relative pose estimation method.