Study on Comprehensive Calibration and Image Sieving for Coal-Gangue Separation Parallel Robot

• Main Authors: Deyong Shang, Yuwei Wang, Zhiyuan Yang, Junjie Wang, Yue Liu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: coal and gangue separation; parallel robot; comprehensive calibration; image sieving
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/20/7059

Online sorting robots based on image recognition are key pieces of equipment for the intelligent washing of coal mines. In this paper, a Delta-type, coal gangue sorting, parallel robot is designed to automatically identify and sort scattered coal and gangue on conveyor belts by configuring the image recognition system. Robot calibration technology can reduce the influence of installation error on system accuracy and provides the basis for the robot to accurately track and grab gangue. Due to the fact that the angle deflection error between the conveyor belt coordinate system and the robot coordinate system is not considered in the traditional conveyor belt calibration method, an improved comprehensive calibration method is put forward in this paper. Firstly, the working principle and image recognition and positioning process of the Delta coal gangue sorting robot are introduced. The scale factor parameter <i>Factor</i>_c of the conveyor encoder is adopted to characterize the relationship between the moving distance of the conveyor and the encoder. The conveyor belt calibration experiment is described in detail. The transformation matrix between the camera, the conveyor belt, and the robot are obtained after establishment of the three respective coordinate systems. The experimental results show that the maximum cumulative deviation of traditional calibration method is 13.841 mm and the comprehensive calibration method is 3.839 mm. The main innovation of the comprehensive calibration is such that the accurate position of each coordinate in the robot coordinate system can be determined. This comprehensive calibration method is simple and feasible, and can effectively improve system calibration accuracy and reduce robot installation error on the grasping accuracy. Moreover, a calculation method to eliminate duplicate images is put forward, with the frame rate of the vision system set at seven frames per second to avoid image repetition acquisition and missing images. The experimental results show that this calculation method effectively improves the processing efficiency of the recognition system, thereby meeting the demands of the grab precision of coal gangue separation engineering. The goal revolving around “safety with few people and safety with none” can therefore be achieved in coal gangue sorting using robots.