New robot can eschew caramels over cremes

17 Jun 2002

A packaging robot, working in a candy factory in the near future, aims its electronic eye at a tray crammed with chocolates. The robot must fill a box with a specificmix of candy, but how can it tell a cream-filled morsel from a chocolate-covered peanut cluster? A new object recognition technique developed at The Johns HopkinsUniversity might help this robot hold onto its job.

Using three lights, a video camera and a computer, researcher Elli Angelopoulou has devised a new way to transform visual images into electronic "signatures." Eachis a distinctive series of 11 numbers. By comparing these signatures, a computer can tell how closely two objects resemble one another. For instance, a smooth,dome-shaped candy and a bumpy nut cluster would have far different signatures.

"As part of an industrial object recognition system, this technique could expand a robot's capability," says Larry Wolff, who supervises the Computer VisionLaboratory in Hopkins' Whiting School of Engineering.