Two antinomical methods for automatically solving assembly tasks; case of picking and stacking film cans

Assembly tasks may very much vary in complexity depending on application specifics. Here the task is found moderately complex, as it implies about 10⁶⁰ possible states on the perception side, each involving about 30000 bit of action data. The paper presents two systems conceived in our lab to perform the task. In one case, perception is achieved in a classic sense, by video camera and original vision software; and action is induced by a robot. In the second case, input space is reduced from 10⁶⁰ possible states to 1 (one) by purely mechanical, a priori designed, task oriented devices. Comparison is made of both approaches, in a discussion where we refer to coercive, adaptive and cognitive paradigms.