Self-Positioning via Machine Vision for Web-Based Tele-Operation of Pneumatic Manipulator

Pneumatic driven system has been widely used in industrial automation mainly for relatively simply tasks with open-loop control. Because of the compressibility and less stop position, they were considered hard to control in a precise motion control system. With the help of newly developed pneumatic servo control technology, it is just as easy of using electro-servo system as to use servo-pneumatic positioning controller now. This article discusses the Web-based servo-pneumatic manipulator controlling, object recognizing and positioning. Authors had built a three-degree-of-freedom pneumatic manipulator with a servo- pneumatic closed-loop control system and machine vision system in the Lab. The Web-based Tele-operation was a basic ability in this experimental system. After installed a CCD camera, video capture card, and related software developed by authors, robot could recognize the object specified by user through web page and find its position. Remote user could command the robot to move to the position and to grab the object. The critical issues of Web-based control are to integrate hybrid open-architecture mechatronic system through Web and develop a software language environment, which characterize script. The experiment demonstrated that pneumatic devices could be used as accurate position control and could be controlled through Web.