SUMMARYWhen applied to rapidly moving objects with complex trajectories, the information-rate limitation imposed by video-camera frame rates impairs the effectiveness of structured-light techniques in real-time robot servoing. To improve the performance of such systems, the use of fast infra-red proximity detectors to augment visual guidance in the final phase of target acquisition was explored. It was found that this approach was limited by the necessity of employing a different range/intensity calibration curve for the proximity detectors for every object and for every angle of approach to complex objects. Consideration of the physics of the detector process suggested that a single log-linear parametric family could describe all such calibration curves, and this was confirmed by experiment. From this result, a technique was devised for cooperative interaction between modalities, in which the vision sense provided on-the-fly determination of calibration parameters for the proximity detectors, for every approach to a target, before passing control of the system to the other modality. This technique provided a three hundred percent increase in useful manipulator velocity, and improved performance during the transition of control from one modality to the other.
Determination of cooperative interaction between clusters in Clostridium pasteurianum 2 (4Fe-4S) ferredoxin.
