Apparatus and method is disclosed for determining position of a robot relative to objects in a workspace which includes the use of a camera, scanner, or other suitable device in conjunction with object recognition. The camera, etc is used to receive information from which a point cloud can be developed about the scene that is viewed by the camera. The point cloud will be appreciated to be in a camera centric frame of reference. Information about a known datum is used and compared to the point cloud through object recognition. For example, a link from a robot could be the identified datum so that, when recognized, the coordinates of the point cloud can be converted to a robot centric frame of reference since the position of the datum would be known relative to the robot.

In one embodiment, an information collecting apparatus has a sensor, an arm, an arm drive mechanism, and a processor. The processor controls the arm drive mechanism to make the arm operate, and thereby makes the sensor move in the vicinity of an article arranged in a shelf. The processor acquires information indicating a state of the article to be measured by the sensor.

Provided is a control system that controls an imaging condition of a camera equipped on a robot to capture an image in which a blur is suppressed.

The control system includes a robot control unit that controls a motion of the robot equipped with the camera, and a camera control unit that controls an imaging operation of the camera. The camera control unit determines an exposure time for suppressing a blur that occurs in a captured image of the camera within an allowable pixel number for the moving speed of the camera, and in a case where the camera control unit cannot set the exposure time, the camera control unit instructs the robot control unit to update a speed limit value of the robot.

An information processing apparatus includes at least one memory storing instructions; and at least one processor that, upon execution of the stored instructions, configures the at least one processor acquire data representing a plurality of portions of a workpiece to be imaged by an imaging unit and acquire first information used in a case where a moving unit that is configured to move the workpiece or the imaging unit moves the workpiece or the imaging unit so as to have a first positional relationship in which a multiple number of portions among the plurality of portions of the workpiece are included in the imaging range.

The present invention provides a mobile robot configured to navigate an operating environment, that includes a machine vision system comprising a camera that captures images of the operating environment using a machine vision system; detects the presence of an occlusion obstructing a portion of the field of view of a camera based on the captured images, and generate a notification when an occlusion obstructing the portion of the field of view of the camera is detected, and maintain occlusion detection data describing occluded and unobstructed portions of images being used by the SLAM application.

The present invention provides a mobile robot configured to navigate an operating environment, that includes a machine vision system comprising a camera that captures images of the operating environment using a machine vision system; detects the presence of an occlusion obstructing a portion of the field of view of a camera based on the captured images, and generate a notification when an occlusion obstructing the portion of the field of view of the camera is detected, and maintain occlusion detection data describing occluded and unobstructed portions of images being used by the SLAM application.

The embodiments relate to a distributed marsupial robotic system. The system includes a parent component having a sensor suite to obtain and process environment data via a parent pattern classification algorithm, and one or more child components each having a sensor suite to obtain and process environment data via a child pattern classification algorithm. Each sensor suite includes one or more sensor devices in communication with a processing unit and memory. Each child component is configured to dock to the parent component, and to separate from the parent component in response to a deployment signal. Each child component obtains environment data during separation. The parent component is configured to construct a map of the environment by receiving and integrating the data obtained by each child component.

There is provided a data processing device, a data processing method, and a robot capable of performing environment sensing using an appropriate algorithm. The data processing device according to one aspect of the present technology is provided with a sensing control unit configured to adaptively select and execute an environment sensing program in which an environment sensing algorithm to sense an environment on the basis of sensor data output from a sensor mounted on a robot is defined according to an environment sensing condition. The present technology may be applied to a sensor device mounted on various devices.

There is provided a data processing device, a data processing method, and a robot capable of performing environment sensing using an appropriate algorithm. The data processing device according to one aspect of the present technology is provided with a sensing control unit configured to adaptively select and execute an environment sensing program in which an environment sensing algorithm to sense an environment on the basis of sensor data output from a sensor mounted on a robot is defined according to an environment sensing condition. The present technology may be applied to a sensor device mounted on various devices.