Trajectory specification via sparse waypoints for eye-in-hand robots requiring continuous target visibility

This paper presents several methods of managing field of view constraints of an eye-in-hand system for vision-based pose control with limited controller input. Herein, the possible inverse kinematic solutions for a desired relative camera pose are evaluated to determine whether the interpolated trajectories satisfy field of view constraints for the target of interest. If no immediately feasible trajectory exists, additional waypoints are specified to guide the robot towards its goal while maintaining visibility. The insertion of an additional visible and feasible waypoint divides the problem into two sub-problems of the same form, but of lesser difficulty by reducing the robot's interpolation distance. Virtual image-based visual servoing (IBVS) is used to generate an ideal image trajectory to guide the selection of waypoints. A damped least-squares inverse kinematics solution is implemented to handle robot singularities. The methods are simulated for a CRS-A465 robot with a Sony XC-HR70 camera.