Case Study on Localization for Robotic Wire Harness Installation

Abstract Wire harness installation is one of the most challenging processing steps for automation in automotive production. Wire harnesses have an infinite number of degrees of freedom, such that they change their shape continuously during manipulation. As of today, the human’s ability to perceive the wire harness and deal with its shape changes, is unmatched by any technical solution. Therefore, wire harnesses are still installed manually. This paper proposes a concept for wire harness localization and applies it for robotic wire harness installation. The concept uses two stereo cameras, one to perceive the shape of the wire harness and obtain rough position estimates of wire harness components, and a second for accurate 6D pose estimation of the individual components. The concept is evaluated with a case study on localization in a car chassis, where the accuracy and limitations of the concept are investigated by practical experiments.