JPH07314355A - Remote control method and device for image pickup device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce burden of an observer, and improve position detection precision by setting pursuit ratios about respective axes to be different from each other, and changing a camera angle for rotation about the axis by which feeling of burden is large for the observer by a little motion of a head part of the observer. CONSTITUTION:Angular change quantities about a panning axis, a tilt axis, and a roll axis of a head part of an observer, or a head-mount type display device 1 mounted on the head part are detected through a source 2a, a sensor 2b, and a head part angle detection part 2c of a head part angle detection device. That means that rotation angles about the panning axis, the roll axis, and the tilt axis perpendicular to each other are detected to be supplied to pursuit a ratio setting part 3. The pursuit ratio setting part 3 multiplies pursuit ratios gamma, alpha, beta as different values for a panning angle, a roll angle, and a tilt angle respectively to be outputted to a camera angle setting part 4. The camera angle setting part 4 drives respective motors 6a-6c based on the set panning angle, roll angle, and tilt angle. The pursuit ratios gamma, alpha, beta are changed in inverse proportion to a zoom magnification of a camera.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a remote control method and apparatus for a stereoscopic image pickup apparatus used in a remote control system, a remote monitoring system or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in order to ensure safety for power distribution work at high places and dangerous work such as the nuclear industry,
Research into automation of work and remote operation from a safe and favorable operating room is under study. In particular, remote operation can be applied to various operations and changes in working conditions by making use of the experience of operators and delicate operation methods, and therefore its application and development are becoming popular. In such remote operation, a visual system is required for accurately transmitting to the operator the state of a work device such as a robot that is remotely operated or a work target that changes from moment to moment.

Similarly, a remote monitoring system for remotely monitoring the surface of an article that is being manufactured or processed without a working device such as a robot that is remotely operated also monitors an image of an object to be monitored which changes moment by moment. There is a need for a visual system for accurate communication with people. Such a visual system
It consists of an industrial TV camera installed at the site and a display device installed at a location distant from the site to display the image of the TV camera.

In these visual systems, it is convenient if information in the perspective direction can also be transmitted to the operator, and a stereoscopic device is known as such a visual system. Such a stereoscopic device, by individually transmitting the image of the object captured by the left and right cameras to the left and right eyes of the operator,
The stereoscopic effect of the object based on the displacement between the images viewed by the left and right eyes is transmitted to the operator. The left and right cameras used in such a stereoscopic device should cross each optical axis at the point of interest on the object so that the left and right cameras fit in the field of view of the object. It is located in. In addition, in order to enlarge or reduce the field of view of the camera, an operation is performed in which the cameras on the left and right sides are cooperatively moved toward or away from the target object.

As a remote control system using the stereoscopic device, a remote control system using a head-mounted display device is known, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 29196/1987. In this remote control system, a dummy simulating the operator is arranged at the work site, and left and right cameras are mounted on this dummy. Furthermore, in order to enhance the operator's sense of presence, the movement of the operator in the operation room is detected as a change in position and posture in the three-dimensional space by a television camera installed in the operation room, and the movement of the operator is imitated. As described above, there is disclosed a technique for changing the position and posture of the dummy in the three-dimensional space at the work site. Further, a technique for improving workability by changing the followability of a work device (slave manipulator) to a remote control device (master manipulator) according to the zoom ratio of a surveillance camera (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-101788). (Gazette) is also known.

[0006]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-291
In the remote operation method described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 96, it is necessary for the dummy to reproduce the reaction force from the slave manipulator during operation as the reaction force received by the operator from the master manipulator to the torso and arms. The position and posture of the dummy are made to correspond one-to-one to the position and posture of the operator. As a result, the positions and postures of the left and right cameras mounted on the dummy change in a one-to-one correspondence with the positions and postures of the operator. However, considering the visual system, even if the posture of the torso does not change, considering that the angle of the head with respect to the torso changes the field of view significantly, work that receives reaction force from the master manipulator There is a problem that the change in the visual field of the worker cannot be correctly simulated only by the change in the position or posture of the worker's torso.

Further, when the movement of the head of the worker is examined in more detail, it is rotated about the pan axis to rotate it left and right, around the tilt axis which is tilted up and down, and tilted to the left and right. It can be decomposed into rotational movements about three orthogonal axes consisting of rotation about a roll axis. In this case, when the head is moved with the head-mounted display device having a considerable weight mounted, an experiment is carried out on the feeling of burden felt by the worker. It turned out that the feeling of burden was different.

Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide an ergonomically optimal remote control method and apparatus for an image pickup apparatus in consideration of reducing the burden on the operator.

Further, in the remote control device disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-29196, the change in the position and posture of the operator is detected by the television camera installed in the operation room. For this reason, there is a problem that not only an expensive auxiliary equipment such as a pattern matching device is required but also the accuracy is lowered. Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a remote control method and device that uses a simple, inexpensive, and highly accurate position detecting means.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A remote control method for an image pickup apparatus according to the present invention is a method for controlling a pan axis, a tilt axis and a roll axis of an observer's head or a head-mout type display apparatus mounted on this head. The amount of change in angle is detected, and each of these detected amounts of change in angle is multiplied by a different tracking ratio, for example, a tracking ratio that is maximum with respect to the pan axis and minimum with respect to the roll axis. It is configured to be set as a rotation angle around each axis. According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the tracking ratio of the angle around each axis is changed so as to be substantially inversely proportional to the zoom ratio of the image pickup apparatus.

[0011]

With the above construction, the tracking ratio around each axis is made different, and for example, the tracking ratio is set to a large value in the order of rotation around the pan axis, the tilt axis, and the roll axis. This allows
Rotation around the roll axis and the tilt axis, which is a heavy burden on the observer, can change the angle of the camera with a slight movement of the observer's head, which can reduce the burden on the operator. Further, preferably, when the camera is zoomed up, the follow-up ratio is reduced to reduce the movement of the screen, so that the observation target can always be kept in the visual field without losing sight.

[0012]

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a remote control device to which a remote control method for an image pickup device according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. This example shows a case where the present invention is applied to a monitoring system that only monitors the status of manufacturing / processing equipment and the status of articles being manufactured / processed without remote control of a work robot or the like. The upper part of FIG. 1 shows the equipment installed in the monitoring room together with the monitoring person P, and the lower part shows the stereoscopic television camera for monitoring installed at the manufacturing / processing site.

The observer P uses the head-mounted stereoscopic device 1 mounted on his / her head to set the left and right side television cameras (the right side television camera is behind the left side television camera 8). By observing the left-side image capturing and the right-side image capturing with the left eye and the right eye respectively, a stereoscopic image can be sensed. In order to avoid complication of the drawing, a cable for image transfer that connects between the left and right television cameras and the head-mounted stereoscopic device is not shown.

The change in the angle of the head of the observer P is detected by the head angle detecting device 2. The head angle detecting device 2 is mounted on the head of the monitor P and is provided with a power supply line (not shown).
A source (orthogonal coil) 2a that receives the supply of AC power via the sensor (orthogonal coil) and a sensor that is fixed to a beam or the like installed above the observer and that detects the AC magnetic field generated by the source 2a (orthogonal Coil) 2b and the amount of change in the magnetic field strength detected by this sensor 2b, the amount of change in the position and angle of the source 2a in the three-dimensional space, and thus the amount of change in the position and angle of the head of the monitor P. And a head angle detection unit 2c for detecting Such a head angle detecting device 2 is easily realized by a 3PACE digitizer manufactured by Nissho Electronics Co., Ltd. and manufactured by Boss Math.

The amount of change in the angle of the head of the supervisor P is a pan angle which is a rotation angle around a pan axis, a roll axis and a tilt axis which are orthogonal to each other in the head angle detecting section 2c as shown in the figure. , And is detected as a set of roll angle and tilt angle, and is supplied to the tracking ratio setting unit 3. Following ratio setting unit 3
Is formed by an appropriate coefficient circuit or a microcomputer, and multiplies different tracking ratios γ, α, and β for the pan axis, roll angle, and tilt angle, respectively, and each of them is a camera angle in a subsequent stage configured by a microcomputer or the like. Output to the setting unit 4. These tracking ratios γ, α, β
Is also modified to be inversely proportional to the zoom factor of the TV camera.

Cameras on both left and right sides are fixed on a three-axis camera mount 7 installed at a work site. The roll axis motor 6a, the tilt axis motor 6b, and the pan axis motor 6c mounted on the three-axis camera mount 7 follow the roll angle, tilt angle, and pan angle set from the operation room via the cables Ca, Cb, and Cc. By rotating, the angles of the left and right cameras fixed on the gantry 7 are changed.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the tracking ratios α, β, γ of the rotation angle of the camera with respect to the rotation angle of the head around the three orthogonal axes. The horizontal axis is the rotation angle of the observer's head, and the vertical axis is the rotation angle of the left and right cameras. When the zoom factor is 3, the tracking ratio α for roll angle, tilt angle, and pan angle is 1.
The roll angle is set to the maximum value and the pan angle is set to the minimum value, such as 5, 1.25 and 0.5. Also,
When the zoom magnification is 30, these tracking ratios are reduced to 0.15, 0.125 and 0.05, respectively, in inverse proportion to the zoom magnification.

The example of application to a monitoring system without remote control of a robot or the like installed at a work site has been described above. However, a slave manipulator such as such a robot and a master manipulator for remotely controlling the slave manipulator are provided. It is obvious that the remote control method and device of the present invention can be applied to the monitoring system of the remote control system.

Further, although the embodiment in which the display device is a stereoscopic device has been described, it is obvious that the present invention can be applied to the case where the display device is a normal plan view.

[0020]

As described in detail above, according to the remote control method and apparatus of the present invention, the values of different follow-up ratios of the rotation angles around the three orthogonal axes, for example, the pan axis, the tilt axis and the roll axis are different. The rotation around the axis is set to increase in order, so it is possible to change the rotation around the roll axis and the tilt axis, which is a heavy burden for the observer, with a slight movement of the head. Burden is reduced. Further, preferably, when the camera is zoomed up, it is possible to always keep the observation target within the visual field without losing sight of the observation target by reducing the tracking ratio and reducing the movement of the screen.

Further, according to the preferred embodiment of the remote control method and apparatus of the present invention, since the change in the angle of the observer's head is detected by using the magnetic conversion type digitizer,
There is an advantage that high detection accuracy can be realized with a simple and inexpensive structure.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a remote control device to which a method according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a tracking ratio in the above embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 stereoscopic device (display device) 2 head angle detection device 3 tracking ratio setting unit 4 camera angle setting unit 6a roll angle control motor 6b tilt angle control motor 6c pan angle control motor 7 three-dimensional camera mount 8 camera

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A remote control of an image pickup device when displaying an image obtained by an image pickup device held rotatably around three orthogonal axes on a display device mounted on a head of an observer at a remote location. In the method, the amount of change in the angle around the pan axis, the tilt axis, and the roll axis of the observer's head or the display device mounted on the head is detected, and the detected amount of change in angle is detected. A remote control method for an image pickup apparatus, wherein a product obtained by multiplying different tracking ratios is set as a rotation angle around each corresponding axis of the image pickup apparatus. 2. The angle-following ratio according to claim 1, wherein the following ratio of angles about each axis is set to be minimum for rotation around the pan axis and maximum for rotation around the roll axis. And a remote control method for an image pickup device. 3. The remote control method for an image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the follow-up ratio of the angle around each axis is changed so as to be substantially inversely proportional to the zoom ratio of the image pickup device. . 4. The remote control method for an image pickup device as defined in claim 1, wherein the image pickup device and the display device form a stereoscopic device. 5. The image pickup device is remotely controlled when an image obtained by the image pickup device rotatably held around three orthogonal axes is displayed on a display device mounted on a head of an observer at a remote location. In the device, an angle detecting means for detecting an amount of change in angle around a pan axis, a tilt axis, and a roll axis of the observer's head or the display device mounted on the head, and changes in these detected angles. A remote control device for an image pickup device, comprising: angle setting means for setting a value obtained by multiplying each of the amounts by different tracking ratios as a rotation angle around each of the corresponding axes of the image pickup device. 6. The angle follow-up ratio according to claim 5, wherein the angle setting means minimizes rotation about the pan axis and maximizes rotation about the roll axis. A remote control device for an image pickup device, wherein: 7. The image pickup device according to claim 5, wherein the angle setting unit changes a tracking ratio of angles around the respective axes so as to be substantially inversely proportional to a zoom ratio of the image pickup device. Remote control device. 8. The remote control device for an image pickup device according to claim 5, wherein the image pickup device and the display device constitute a stereoscopic device. 9. The remote control device for an image pickup device according to claim 5, wherein the angle detection unit is a magnetic conversion type digitizer.