Multi-camera 3D object reconstruction for industrial automation

In this paper, a method to automate industrial manufacturing processes using an intelligent multi-camera system to assist a robotic arm on a production line is presented. The examined assembly procedure employs a volumetric method for the initial estimation of object’s properties and an octree decomposition process to generate the path plans for the robotic arm. Initially, the object is captured by four cameras and its volumetric representation is produced. Thereafter, a quality check with its respective CAD model is performed and the final details of the 3D model are refined. An octree decomposition technique is utilized afterwards to facilitate the automatic generation of the assembly path plans and translate them to a sequence of movements for the robotic arm. The algorithm is fast, computationally simple and produces an assembly sequence that can be translated to any major robotic programming language. The proposed algorithm is assessed and preliminary experimental results are discussed.