A Robotic Charging Scheme for Electric Vehicles Based on Monocular Vision and Force Perception Electric Vehicles are rapidly gaining popularity worldwide. The main two problems limiting their use are the short driving distance and inconvenient charging process. In this paper, we propose a technical scheme for opening the cover and inserting the plug into the charging port autonomously based on monocular vision guidance technology and force sensing technology. The whole system consists of a monocular camera, an UR5 robot with the plug mounted at the end and a charging port. The process firstly obtains the pixel coordinates of the target, and then calculates the spatial position of the target, thereby guiding the robot arm to complete the operation of opening the cover. Then the SVM algorithm is applied to analyze the forcetorque data during the pluginhole process. The plug is inserted into the hole according to the data analysis result. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed scheme is demonstrated in a series of successful experiments.

Vehicular MultiCamera Sensor System for Automated Visual Inspection of Electric Power Distribution Equipment In this paper, we present a multicamera sensor system along with its control algorithm for automated visual inspection from a moving vehicle. To accomplish this task, we propose a unique hardware configuration consisting of a frontal stereo vision system, six lateral cameras motorized to tilt, and a GPSIMU sensor mounted on the roof of a car. From the frontal stereo system, we detect electric poles and estimate their corresponding 3D positions. Based on this 3D estimation, the tilt angles of the motorized lateral cameras are controlled in realtime to capture high resolution images of the equipment  typically installed a few meters above the road surface. In addition, inertial odometry information from the GPSIMU module is utilized for pose estimation, object localization, and reidentification among cameras. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of our system for automated electric equipment maintenance, which can reduce human effort significantly.