Operator Reference
hand_eye_calibration (Operator)
hand_eye_calibration — Perform a hand-eye calibration.
Signature
hand_eye_calibration( : : X, Y, Z, Row, Col, NumPoints, RobotPoses, CameraParam, Method, QualityType : CameraPose, CalibrationPose, Quality)
Description
The operator hand_eye_calibration determines the 3D pose of a robot
(“hand”) relative to a camera (“eye”). With this information, the
results of image processing can be transformed into the coordinate system of
the robot which can then, e.g., grasp an inspected part.
Please note that the operator hand_eye_calibration does not support
3D sensors. A hand-eye calibration including 3D sensors is only supported
by the operator calibrate_hand_eye. That operator furthermore
provides a more user-friendly interface to the hand-eye calibration than the
operator hand_eye_calibration, since the reference coordinate
systems are explicitly indicated.
There are two possible configurations of robot-camera (hand-eye) systems:
The camera can be mounted on the robot or be stationary and observe the
robot. Note that the term robot is used in place for a mechanism that moves
objects. Thus, you can use hand_eye_calibration to calibrate many
different systems, from pan-tilt heads to multi-axis manipulators.
In essence, systems suitable for hand-eye calibration are described by a closed chain of four Euclidean transformations. In this chain two non-consecutive transformations are either known from the robot controller or computed from calibration points seen by a camera system. The two other constant transformations are computed by the hand-eye calibration procedure.
A hand-eye calibration is performed similarly to the calibration of the
external camera parameters (see camera_calibration): You acquire a
set of images of a calibration object, determine correspondences between
known calibration points and their projection in the images and pass them to
hand_eye_calibration via the parameters X, Y,
Z, Row, Col, and NumPoints. If
you use the standard calibration plate, the correspondences can be determined
very easily with the operators find_caltab and
find_marks_and_pose. Furthermore, the camera is identical for
the complete calibration sequence and is specified by the internal camera
parameters in CameraParam. The internal camera parameters are
calibrated beforehand deploying the operator calibrate_cameras or
camera_calibration.
In contrast to the camera calibration, the calibration object is not moved
manually. This task is delegated to the robot, which either moves the camera
(mounted camera) or the calibration object (stationary camera). The robot's
movements are assumed to be known and therefore are also used as an input for
the calibration (parameter RobotPoses).
The output of hand_eye_calibration are the two poses
CameraPose and CalibrationPose. Their pose type is
identical to the pose type of the first input robot pose.
Basically, two hand-eye configurations can be distinguished and are discussed in more detail below, followed by general information about the process of hand-eye calibration.
Moving camera (mounted on a robot)
In this configuration, the calibration object remains stationary and the camera is moved to different positions by the robot. The main idea behind the hand-eye calibration is that the information extracted from a calibration image, i.e., the pose of the calibration object relative to the camera (i.e., the external camera parameters), can be seen as a chain of poses or homogeneous transformation matrices, from the calibration object via the base of the robot to its tool (end-effector) and finally to the camera:
Moving camera: cam_H_cal = cam_H_tool * tool_H_base * base_H_cal
| | |
CameraPose RobotPoses CalibrationPose
From the set of calibration images, the operator hand_eye_calibration
determines the two transformations at the ends of the chain, i.e., the pose
of the robot tool in camera coordinates
(,CameraPose) and
the pose of the calibration object in the robot base coordinate system
(,CalibrationPose).
In contrast, the transformation in the middle of the chain,
, is known but changes for each
calibration image, because it describes the pose of the robot moving the
camera, or to be more exact its inverse pose (pose of the base coordinate
system in robot tool coordinates). You must specify the inverse robot poses
in the calibration images in the parameter RobotPoses.
Note that when calibrating SCARA robots it is not possible to
determine the Z translation of CalibrationPose. To eliminate
this ambiguity the Z translation of CalibrationPose is internally
set to 0.0 and the CameraPose is calculated accordingly.
It is necessary to determine the true translation in Z after
the calibration (see calibrate_hand_eye).
Stationary camera
In this configuration, the robot grasps the calibration object and moves it in front of the camera. Again, the information extracted from a calibration image, i.e., the pose of the calibration object in camera coordinates (the external camera parameters), are equal to a chain of poses or homogeneous transformation matrices, this time from the calibration object via the robot's tool to its base and finally to the camera:
Stationary camera: cam_H_cal = cam_H_base * base_H_tool * tool_H_cal
| | |
CameraPose RobotPoses CalibrationPose
Analogously to the configuration with a moving camera, the operator
hand_eye_calibration determines the two transformations at the ends
of the chain, here the pose of the robot base coordinate system in camera
coordinates
(,CameraPose)
and the pose of the calibration object relative to the robot tool
(,CalibrationPose).
The transformation in the middle of the chain,
, describes the pose of the
robot moving the calibration object, i.e., the pose of the tool relative to
the base coordinate system. You must specify the robot poses in the
calibration images in the parameter RobotPoses.
Note that when calibrating SCARA robots it is not possible to
determine the Z translation of CalibrationPose. To eliminate
this ambiguity the Z translation of CalibrationPose is internally
set to 0.0 and the CameraPose is calculated accordingly.
It is necessary to determine the true translation in Z after
the calibration (see calibrate_hand_eye).
Additional information about the calibration process
The following sections discuss individual questions arising from the
use of hand_eye_calibration. They are intended to be a guideline
for using the operator in an application, as well as to help
understanding the operator.
- How do I get 3D calibration points and their projections?
-
3D calibration points given in the world coordinate system (
X,Y,Z) and their associated projections in the image (Row,Col) form the basis of the hand-eye calibration. In order to be able to perform a successful hand-eye calibration, you need at least three images of the 3D calibration points that were obtained under different poses of the manipulator. In each image at least four points must be available, in order to compute internally the pose transferring the calibration points from their world coordinate system into the camera coordinate system.In principle, you can use arbitrary known points for the calibration. However, it is usually most convenient to use the standard calibration plate, e.g., the one that can be generated with
gen_caltab. In this case, you can use the operatorsfind_caltabandfind_marks_and_poseto extract the position of the calibration plate and of the calibration marks and the operatorcaltab_pointsto read the 3D coordinates of the calibration marks (see also the description ofcamera_calibration).The parameter
NumPointsspecifies the number of 3D calibration points used for each pose of the manipulator, i.e., for each image. With this, the 3D calibration points which are stored in a linearized fashion inX,Y,Z, and their corresponding projections (Row,Col) can be associated with the corresponding pose of the manipulator (RobotPoses). Note that in contrast to the operatorcamera_calibrationthe 3D coordinates of the calibration points must be specified for each calibration image, not only once, and thus can vary for each image of the sequence. - How do I acquire a suitable set of images?
-
The following conditions, especially if using a standard calibration plate, should be considered:
-
The position of the calibration marks (moving camera: relative to the robot's base; stationary camera: relative to the robot's tool) and the position of the camera (moving camera: relative to the robot's tool; stationary camera: relative to the robot's base) must not be changed between the images.
-
The internal camera parameters (
CameraParam) must be constant and must be determined in a previous camera calibration step (seecamera_calibration). Note that changes of the image size, the focal length, the aperture, or the focus cause a change of the internal camera parameters. -
The theoretical lower limit of the number of image to acquire is three. Nevertheless, it is recommended to have 10 or more images at hand, in which the position of the camera or the robot hand are sufficiently different.
For articulated (i.e., non-SCARA) robots the amount of rotation between the images is essential and should be at least 30 degrees or better 60 degrees. The rotations between the images must exhibit at least two different axes of rotation. Very different orientations lead to precise calibration results. For SCARA robots there is only one axis of rotation. The amount of rotation between the images should also be large.
-
In each image, the calibration plate must be completely visible (including its border).
-
Reflections or other disturbances should not impair the detection of the calibration plate and its calibration marks.
-
If individual calibration marks instead of the standard calibration plate are used at least four marks must be present in each image.
-
In each image, the calibration plate should at least fill one quarter of the entire image for a precise computation of the calibration to camera transformation, which is performed internally during hand-eye calibration.
-
As mentioned, the camera must not be modified between the acquisition of the individual images. Please make sure that the focus is sufficient for the expected changes of the camera to calibration plate distance. Therefore, bright lighting conditions for the calibration plate are important, because then you can use smaller apertures, which result in a larger depth of focus.
-
- How do I obtain the poses of the robot?
-
In the parameter
RobotPosesyou must pass the poses of the robot in the calibration images (moving camera: pose of the robot base in robot tool coordinates; stationary camera: pose of the robot tool in robot base coordinates) in a linearized fashion. We recommend to create the robot poses in a separate program and save in files usingwrite_pose. In the calibration program you can then read and accumulate them in a tuple as shown in the example program below. In addition, we recommend to save the pose of the robot tool in robot base coordinates independent of the hand-eye configuration. When using a moving camera, you then invert the read poses before accumulating them. This is also shown in the example program.Via the Cartesian interface of the robot, you can typically obtain the pose of the tool in base coordinates in a notation that corresponds to the pose representations with the codes 0 or 2 (
OrderOfRotation= 'gba' or 'abg', seecreate_pose). In this case, you can directly use the pose values obtained from the robot as input forcreate_pose.If the Cartesian interface of your robot describes the orientation in a different way, e.g., with the representation ZYZ (), you can create the corresponding homogeneous transformation matrix step by step using the operators
hom_mat3d_rotateandhom_mat3d_translateand then convert the matrix into a pose usinghom_mat3d_to_pose. The following example code creates a pose from the ZYZ representation described above:Please note that the hand-eye calibration only works if the robot poses
RobotPosesare specified with high accuracy! - What is the order of the individual parameters?
-
The length of the tuple
NumPointscorresponds to the number of different positions of the manipulator and thus to the number of calibration images. The parameterNumPointsdetermines the number of calibration points used in the individual positions. If the standard calibration plate is used, this means 49 points per position (image). If, for example, 15 images were acquired,NumPointsis a tuple of length 15, where all elements of the tuple have the value 49.The number of images in the sequence, which is determined by the length of
NumPoints, must also be taken into account for the tuples of the 3D calibration points and the extracted 2D marks, respectively. Hence, for 15 calibration images with 49 calibration points each, the tuplesX,Y,Z,Row, andColmust contain values each. These tuples are ordered according to the image the respective points lie in, i.e., the first 49 values correspond to the 49 calibration points in the first image. The order of the 3D calibration points and the extracted 2D calibration points must be the same in each image.The length of the tuple
RobotPosesalso depends on the number of calibration images. If, for example, 15 images and therefore 15 poses are used, the length of the tupleRobotPosesis (15 times 7 pose parameters). The first seven parameters thus determine the pose of the manipulator in the first image, and so on. - Algorithm and output parameters
-
The parameter
Methoddetermines the type of algorithm used for the hand-eye calibration: With 'linear' a linear algorithm is chosen, which is fast but in many practical situations not accurate enough. 'nonlinear' selects a non-linear algorithm, which results in the most accurately calibrated poses and which is the method of choice.For the calibration of SCARA robots the parameter
Methodmust be set to 'scara_linear' or 'scara_nonlinear', respectively. While the arm of an articulated robot has three rotary joints typically covering 6 degrees of freedom (3 translations and 3 rotations), SCARA robots have two parallel rotary joints and one parallel prismatic joint covering only 4 degrees of freedom (3 translations and 1 rotation). Loosely speaking, an articulated robot is able to tilt its end effector while a SCARA robot is not.The parameter
QualityTypeswitches between different possibilities for assessing the quality of the calibration result returned inQuality. 'error_pose' stands for the pose error of the complete chain of transformations. To be more precise, a tuple with four elements is returned, where the first element is the root-mean-square error of the translational part, the second element is the root-mean-square error of the rotational part, the third element is the maximum translational error and the fourth element is the maximum rotational error. With 'standard_deviation', a tuple with 12 elements containing the standard deviations of the two poses is returned: The first six elements refer to the camera pose and the others to the pose of the calibration points. With 'covariance', the full 12x12 covariance matrix of both poses is returned. Like poses, the standard deviations and the covariances are specified in the units [m] and [°]. Note that selecting 'linear' or 'scara_linear' for the parameterMethodenables only the output of the pose error ('error_pose').
Execution Information
- Multithreading type: reentrant (runs in parallel with non-exclusive operators).
- Multithreading scope: global (may be called from any thread).
- Processed without parallelization.
Parameters
X (input_control) number-array → (real / integer)
Linear list containing all the x coordinates of the calibration points (in the order of the images).
Y (input_control) number-array → (real / integer)
Linear list containing all the y coordinates of the calibration points (in the order of the images).
Z (input_control) number-array → (real / integer)
Linear list containing all the z coordinates of the calibration points (in the order of the images).
Row (input_control) number-array → (real / integer)
Linear list containing all row coordinates of the calibration points (in the order of the images).
Col (input_control) number-array → (real / integer)
Linear list containing all the column coordinates of the calibration points (in the order of the images).
NumPoints (input_control) integer-array → (integer)
Number of the calibration points for each image.
RobotPoses (input_control) pose-array → (real / integer)
Known 3D pose of the robot for each image (moving camera: robot base in robot tool coordinates; stationary camera: robot tool in robot base coordinates).
CameraParam (input_control) campar → (real / integer / string)
Internal camera parameters.
Method (input_control) string → (string)
Method of hand-eye calibration.
Default: 'nonlinear'
List of values: 'linear', 'nonlinear', 'scara_linear', 'scara_nonlinear'
QualityType (input_control) string(-array) → (string)
Type of quality assessment.
Default: 'error_pose'
List of values: 'covariance', 'error_pose', 'standard_deviation'
CameraPose (output_control) pose → (real / integer)
Computed relative camera pose: 3D pose of the robot tool (moving camera) or robot base (stationary camera), respectively, in camera coordinates.
CalibrationPose (output_control) pose → (real / integer)
Computed 3D pose of the calibration points in robot base coordinates (moving camera) or in robot tool coordinates (stationary camera), respectively.
Quality (output_control) real(-array) → (real)
Quality assessment of the result.
Example (HDevelop)
* Note that, in order to use this code snippet, you must provide
* the camera parameters, the calibration plate description file,
* the calibration images, and the robot poses.
read_cam_par('campar.dat', CameraParam)
CalDescr := 'caltab.descr'
caltab_points(CalDescr, X, Y, Z)
* Process all calibration images.
for i := 0 to NumImages-1 by 1
read_image(Image, 'calib_'+i$'02d')
* Find marks on the calibration plate in every image.
find_caltab(Image, CalPlate, CalDescr, 3, 150, 5)
find_marks_and_pose(Image, CalPlate, CalDescr, CameraParam, 128, 10, 18, \
0.9, 15, 100, RCoordTmp, CCoordTmp, StartPose)
* Accumulate 2D and 3D coordinates of the marks.
RCoord := [RCoord, RCoordTmp]
CCoord := [CCoord, CCoordTmp]
XCoord := [XCoord, X]
YCoord := [YCoord, Y]
ZCoord := [ZCoord, Z]
NumMarker := [NumMarker, |RCoordTmp|]
* Read pose of the robot tool in robot base coordinates.
read_pose('robpose_'+i$'02d'+'.dat', RobPose)
* Moving camera? Invert pose.
if (IsMovingCameraConfig == 'true')
pose_to_hom_mat3d(RobPose, base_H_tool)
hom_mat3d_invert(base_H_tool, tool_H_base)
hom_mat3d_to_pose(tool_H_base, RobPose)
endif
* Accumulate robot poses.
RobotPoses := [RobotPoses, RobPose]
endfor
*
* Perform hand-eye calibration.
*
hand_eye_calibration(XCoord, YCoord, ZCoord, RCoord, CCoord, NumMarker, \
RobotPoses, CameraParam, 'nonlinear', 'error_pose', \
CameraPose, CalibrationPose, Error)
Result
The operator hand_eye_calibration returns the value 2 (
H_MSG_TRUE)
if the given parameters are correct. Otherwise, an exception will be raised.
Possible Predecessors
find_marks_and_pose,
camera_calibration,
calibrate_cameras
Possible Successors
write_pose,
convert_pose_type,
pose_to_hom_mat3d,
disp_caltab,
sim_caltab
Alternatives
See also
find_caltab,
find_marks_and_pose,
disp_caltab,
sim_caltab,
write_cam_par,
read_cam_par,
create_pose,
convert_pose_type,
write_pose,
read_pose,
pose_to_hom_mat3d,
hom_mat3d_to_pose,
caltab_points,
gen_caltab,
calibrate_hand_eye
References
K. Daniilidis: “Hand-Eye Calibration Using Dual Quaternions”;
International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 18, No. 3,
pp. 286-298; 1999.
M. Ulrich, C. Steger: “Hand-Eye Calibration of SCARA Robots Using Dual
Quaternions”; Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, Vol. 26, No. 1,
pp. 231-239; January 2016.
Module
Calibration