Aruco Marker-Based Pick and Place Approach Using a UR5 Robotic Arm and Vacuum Gripper

With the advent of technology in this digital era, demand for a more optimized and cost-effective information-storing source/algorithm is increasing in industry. Research is being done in this domain for a long time and different algorithms have been found till now; one of these algorithms/methods is Aruco marker. Aruco marker is a fiducial marker that can store data and act as a reference in a camera-captured image. These references in an image can help in easing/solving problems like image-augmented measurements of objects, perspective transformation of image, pose estimation of objects, etc. This article presents an automated pick and place approach using the pose estimation utility of Aruco markers with the help of a UR5 robotic arm and vacuum gripper. It also demonstrates a simulation scenario that utilized this approach to pick and place product boxes from a moving conveyor belt in a simulated warehouse environment using the Robotic operating system (ROS) framework.