Robust Insertion Control for Precision Assembly With Passive Compliance Combining Vision and Force Information

In this article, a robust insertion control method for precision peg-in-hole assembly is developed by visually supervising the deformation of the passive compliance based on microscopic vision and force information. The advantage of the proposed method is the assembly task can be conducted with pose alignment errors since the passive compliance is visually supervised. This significantly decreases the precision requirement for parts alignment and thus contributes to precision assembly. Specifically, the relationship between the contact status among parts and the deformations of the passive compliance is first analyzed. Afterward, the vision-based method to estimate the three-dimensional deformation of the passive compliance is discussed. Finally, a hybrid insertion controller is proposed combining both force and position feedbacks. Experiments were designed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method and the significance of introducing vision supervision into the insertion process.