Patent ID: 8244402

Claim:
A robotic system comprising: a humanoid robot having a plurality of robotic joints each being moveable using at least one actuator; and a distributed controller configured to control the movement of each of the robotic joints, wherein the controller includes a visual perception module (VPM) that is configured to visually identify and track an object in the field of view of the robot under predetermined threshold ambient lighting conditions; wherein the VPM includes: a plurality of optical devices each configured to collect an image of the object; at least one of a laser device and a range imaging device configured to detect positional information of the object; and a host machine configured to: process the image and the positional information to thereby visually identify and track the object; automatically adapt an exposure time of the optical devices to prevent feature data loss of the image under the threshold lighting conditions; and discriminate either of a black-on-black or a white-on-white feature of interest on the object by: automatically evaluating a small area of interest in the image; using a histogram to determine the extent of the range of illumination of the area of interest; and processing the range of illumination to thereby identify the features of interest.