Pipe Alignment with the Image Based Visual Servo Control

Tube alignment is an important task characterized by the complexity of processing and aligning large-diameter tube segments. Traditional optoelectronic measurement systems consist of a large number of components, and a significant amount of time is spent on preliminary system calibration. In this article, a method of visual servo control using a FishEye camera and structured light is proposed to optimize the tube center position. The proposed technical vision system contains fewer elements, simplifying the system configuration and setup. Firstly, the optical axis of the technical vision system is aligned with the inner surface axis of the tube through calibration. Then, laser points belonging to the inner surface of the tube are extracted. Next, a visual servo control law is applied to control the deviation between the desired and current positions of the tube center. Finally, experiments are conducted in a developed virtual environment that replicates the real technological process to demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed method. Real-world experiments involve measurement uncertainties, making it challenging to compare different methods. Additionally, it is difficult or impossible to estimate certain parameters in real conditions. The virtual environment helps overcome these issues. The simulation environment and testing code are available online: https://github.com/kholodilinivan/Pipe-Alignment-IBVS .