Visual servoing using non-vector space control theory

Traditional image based visual servoing approaches require feature extraction and tracking during the servoing process. Feature extraction and tracking, however, can be quite difficult in some cases. To eliminate these requirements, this paper presents a visual servoing approach which performs control directly using the intensity information in the image. Considering the image as a set, the approach formulates the servoing problem in the space of sets, which is called non-vector space in this paper. The control theory in this non-vector space is used to formulate the stabilization problem. A controller is designed to stabilize the system around a desired image set. Three types of experiments are carried out on a redundant robotic manipulator to validate the controller. The experimental results verify the correctness of the controller. The approach presented in this paper can be applied to robotic manipulation and navigation.