Multiple Objects Localization Using Image Segmentation with U-Net

Precise object localization in an industrial environment is a significant task affecting follow-up processes for a pick and place application. One of the solutions to effectively ensure the success of this task is to use modern methods of machine vision. Machine vision is still a highly evolving topic, in which the use of approaches based on convolutional neural networks is rising. And so in this contribution, an innovative engineering approach based on convolutional neural networks is proposed for an object localization task. The approach is based on an atypical image segmentation, where the individual objects are represented by two colored gradient circles. These circles represent significant parts of the object like its center or ending. Each object type (class) is determined by a specific color. By use of a local maxima finder, all circles in an image are transformed to points. With knowledge of these points the coordinates and rotations are calculated. The proposed approach was tested on a legitimate localization problem with 100% precision, more than 99.52% recall on the positioning task and with an average of 6 minutes angle variance per object.