YouBot – A Mobile Manipulator for

Picking & Placing Different Color

Objects

Proposal Presentation 1
 Outline
• Introduction
• Kuka YouBot
• Key Characteristics
• Problem Statement
• Aim of the Project
• Flow chart
• Image Acquisition
• Image Processing
• Feature Extraction
• Color Detection
• Decision Making

Proposal Presentation 2
 Introduction

• Pick and place mobile robots are commonly used in modern

manufacturing environments.

• Speeds up the process of automation by picking up parts and

placing them in other locations.

• Helps increasing the production rates.

• Handle repetitive tasks while freeing up human workers to focus

on more complex work. [1]

Proposal Presentation 3
 Kuka YouBot
• A powerful key technology for the cognitive factory having
mobile manipulation platforms, and pays attention to industrial
requirements, meet requirements of Education and Research [2].

It provides:
• seamless integration of planning and control,
• task effective
• revision and adaptation of tasks and motion plans,
• resource management (sensing for locomotion vs. sensing
• for manipulation),
• self-perception, self-modeling, self-awareness,
• robustness and dependability, openness [3]

Proposal Presentation 4
Kuka YouBot

[4]

Proposal Presentation 5
Key Characteristics

[3]

Proposal Presentation 6
 Problem Statement
• With mobile manipulation still counting as a field of basic
research, comprehensive education in mobile manipulation
virtually does not exist.

• Bridging the gap between the three islands of mobile

manipulation by an affordable mobile manipulator system – the
KUKA YouBot – which is suitable for performing basic
research, educating students and application development for
cognitive manufacturing.

Proposal Presentation 7
 Aim of the Project
• The goal of the project is to simulate a Mobile Manipulator YouBot
with the purpose of picking and placing different color boxes (Red,
Green, Blue).

• The YouBot will be mounted with Vision Sensors to detect, identify,

differentiate between colors of the boxes, and transport them to their
concerned places.

• The simulations will be carried out in V-Rep.

Proposal Presentation 8
Flowchart

Proposal Presentation 9
 Image Acquisition

• The first stage of any vision system is the image acquisition st

age.
• After the image has been obtained, various methods of process
ing can be applied to the image to perform the many different
vision tasks required today.
• However, if the image has not been acquired satisfactorily the
n the intended tasks may not be achievable, even with the aid
of some form of image enhancement. [4]

Proposal Presentation 10
 Image Processing
• It is the processing of various algorithms on an image to get the resu
lts according to our requirements

• Preparing images for measurement of features and structure present

[5]
Purpose:
• Visualization – Observe the objects that are not visible.
• Image Sharpening and restoration – To create a better image.
• Image Retrieval – Seek for the image of interest.
• Measurement of pattern – Measures various objects in an image.
• Image Recognition – Distinguish the various objects in an image

Proposal Presentation 11
 Feature Extraction
• Feature extraction describes the relevant shape information containe
d in a pattern.

• The main goal of feature extraction is to obtain the most relevant inf
ormation from the original data and represent that information in a l
ower dimensionality space.
• Feature extraction is an important step in the construction of any pat
tern classification and aims at the extraction of the relevant informat
ion that characterizes each class. [6]

Proposal Presentation 12
 Color Detection
• Computer vision software can measure color characteristics of an image.
• A color detection algorithm identifies pixels in an image that match a specified
color or color range. The color of detected pixels can then be changed to distin
guish them from the rest of the image. [7]

Steps:
• Color input image is loaded into the program
• Image is scaled and converted to Hue, Saturation, Value (HSV) color space.
• Trackbars are created with lower/ upper color space options,
• Image, image mask and trackbars are displayed.
• Mask is overlayed with imaged showing color selection. User selects color range w
ith H,S,V trackbars.
• H,S,V values indicate selected color.
• OpenCV HSV color space range is, H: 0 - 180, S: 0 - 255, V: 0 – 255.

Proposal Presentation 13
 Decision Making
• The autonomy of robots heavily relies on their ability to make
decisions based on the information provided by their sensors.

• Based on all the above steps the YouBot will perform necessar
y action of picking the desired colored box and placing it on th
e desired table

Proposal Presentation 14
V rep Simulation for Pick and
Place YouBot

[8]
Proposal Presentation 15
 References
[1]. R.M. Haralick, L.G. Shapiro, Computer and Robot Vision, vol. I, Addison
Wesley,1992.
[2]. O. Khatib. A unified approach to motion and force control of robot manipulators: The
operational space formulation. IEEE Journal of Robotics
and Automation, 3(1):43-53, 1987.
[3]. KUKA youBot – a mobile manipulator for research and education, ICRA
Communications
[4]. KUKA youBot store, URL: www.youbot-store.com
[5]. https://www.skyfilabs.com/blog/latest-image-processing-mini-projects
[6]. Gaurav Y. Tawde, Jayshree Kundargi, “An Overview of features Extraction
Techniques in OCR for Indian Scripts Focused on Offline Handwriting”, International
journal of Engineering Research and Applications, Vol. 3, Issue 1, pp. 919-926, Jan-Feb
2013.
[7].
https://publiclab.org/notes/MaggPi/07-09-2018/computer-vision-color- detection
[8]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIYnsqE0GVM

Proposal Presentation 16
Thank you
Proposal Presentation 17