Object Tracking andInterception System : Mobile Object Catching Robot using StaticStereo Vision

Sammanfattning: The aim of this project is to examine the feasibility andreliability of the use of a low cost computer vision system totrack and intercept a thrown object. A stereo vision systemtracks the object using color recognition and then guides amobile wheeled robot towards an interception point in orderto capture it. Two different trajectory prediction modelsare compared. One model fits a second degree polynomialto the collected positional measurements of the object andthe other uses the Forward Euler Method to construct theobjects flight path.To accurately guide the robot, the angular position of therobot must also be measured. Two different methods ofmeasuring the angular position are presented and their respectivereliability are measured. A calibrated magnetometeris used as one method while pure computer vision isimplemented as the alternative method.A functional object tracking and interception system thatwas able to intercept the thrown object was constructed usingboth the polynomial fitting trajectory prediction modelas well as the one based on the Forward Euler Method.The magnetometer and pure computer vision are both viablemethods of determining the angular position of therobot with an error of less than 1.5°.