Many industrial tasks require sophisticated vision interpretation, yet demand low-cost, high speed, accuracy, and flexibility.  To be fully effective, machine vision systems must be able to handle complex industrial parts.  This includes verifying or recognizing incoming parts, and determining the location and orientation of the part within a short cycle time.  It is generally required that the cycle-time required by the vision-guided automation system is less than that of the subsequent processes. 

To meet the above requirements, Dr. Lee and his co-workers developed the FIVS at Georgia Tech to provide a high speed image processing camera.   FIVS offers performance and cost advantages by integrating the imaging sensor, control, illumination, direct digitization, computation, and data communication in a single unit. 

Lee, K.-M. and D. Li, "Retroreflective Vision Sensing for Generic Part Presentation," Journal of Robotic Systems, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 55-73, February 1991. Also in presented  at the IEEE Southcon/90, Orlando, Florida, March 20-22, 1990, pp. 108-113.

Lee, K.-M., "Design Concept of an Integrated Vision System for Cost-Effective Flexible Part-Feeding Applications," ASME J. of Engineering for Industry, Vol. 116, pp. 421-428, November 1994.  Also presented at the 1991 ASME/WAM.

Lee, K.-M. and R. Blenis, "Design Concept and Prototype Development of a Flexible Integrated Vision System," Journal of Robotic Systems, 11(5), 387-398, (1994).  Presented at the SME Applied Machine Vision Conference '92, June 1-4, 1992, Atlanta, Georgia.  Also featured in SME/MVA Vision Quarterly,  Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 1-3, 1992.

Parker, J. and K-M. Lee, “Physically-Accurate Synthetic Images for Machine Vision Design,” ASME J. of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, November 1999, vol. 121, no. 4, pp. 763-770.

Lee, K.-M., W. Daley and Q. Li, "Artificial Color Contrast for Machine Vision and its Effects on Feature Detection," Proc. of IEEE/ASME AIM2005, July 24-28, 2005, Monterey, California, pp. 219-224.

Li, Q. and K.-M. Lee, "Effects of Color Characterization on Computational Efficiency of Feature Detection with Live-object Handling Applications," Proc. of IEEE/ASME AIM2005, July 24-28, 2005, Monterey, California, pp. 225-230.

Lee, K.-M., Q. Li, and W. Daley "Effects of Classification Methods on Color-based Feature Detection with Food Processing Applications," IEEE Trans. on Automation Science and Engineering (In press, to appear in January 2007).

Dickerson, S. and Lee, K.-M., Image Reading And Processing Apparatus, US Patent 5,146,340. (September 8, 1992); European Patent Number 0549736, issued January 7, 1998, entitled “Image Reading System”; and Canadian Patent Number 2,088,357, issued May 19, 1998, entitled “Image Reading System”.

Lee, K.-M., Blenis R., and Pao, T.-L, System And Method For Controlling A Variable-Reluctance Spherical Motor, US Patent 5,402,049. (March 28, 1995)

Absolute Non-contact Orientation Sensor

This research has been motivated by the need for the measurement of the absolute orientation of a spherical rotor. With a specially designed grid pattern which encodes orientation information, the non-contact vision-based sensor determines the 3DOF rotor orientation of a wrist-like actuator for the motion control.

Lee, K-M., G. Meyouhas, and R. Blenis, "A Machine-Vision-Based Wrist Sensor for Direct Measurement of Three-DOF Orientation," Mechatronics, 1993, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 571-587.

Garner, H. and K-M. Lee, " Development of a Vision-Based Orientation Sensor,” Proc. of the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division -2000, Nov. 5-10, Orlando, FL, vol. 1, pp. 173-180.

Lee, K-M. and Y. Qian, "Development of a Flexible Intelligent Control for Target Pursuit," ASME J. of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, August 1998, vol. 120, pp. 640-647.   Also in Proc. of  ICRAM’95, Istanbul, Turkey, August 14-16, vol. 1, pp. 310-317.

 Lee, K-M. and J. Downs, “Vision-guided Dynamic Part Pick-up Learning Algorithm,” Proc. of the 1997 IEEE/ASME Int. Conf. on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM’97), Tokyo Japan, June 16-20, 1997, pp. 55-60.

 Vision-guided motion control

Lee, K-M., Z. Zhou, R. Blenis, and E. Blasch, “Real-Time Vision-Based Tracking Control of an Unmanned Vehicle,” Mechatronics, October 1995, vol. 5, no.8, pp. 973-991.

Grating Interferometer

Garner, H., K-M. Lee, and L. Guo, "Development of a Grating Interferometer with Application to HDD Servo-Track Writing," ASME J. of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, August 2001, vol. 123, no. 3, pp. 445-452. Also presented at the ASME IMECE Manufacturing Division Proc., November 14-19, 1999, Nashville, Tennessee.