Outlet detection and pose estimation for robot continuous operation

We describe an algorithm for detection of electrical outlets in images obtained by a monocular camera. We provide a method for calculating 3D coordinates of outlet holes with accuracy high enough for a robot to plug in without visual servoing. The paper proposes a novel algorithm for accurate pose estimation of a small planar object. We use the plane normal obtained from stereo data as a hard constraint for a planar PnP problem. A different cost function is proposed together with a closed-form solution for the object pose. This system is used for continuous operation of a PR2 robot enabling it to run for 2 weeks without human supervision.