Method and apparatus for determining position and rotational orientation of an object

A method of determining a coordinate position and rotational orientation of an object within a predefined coordinate space, the method comprising:

• a) providing a marker mounted on the object;
• b) arranging a camera or plurality of cameras of an image acquisition system at predetermined known positional locations within the coordinate space, so that all portions of the coordinate space are within view of at least one camera;
• c) acquiring an image of the marker with at least one camera;
• d) processing the image to determine the identity, the position relative to the camera, and the rotational orientation relative to the camera of the marker;
• and
• e) calculating the position of the object and the rotational orientation of the object in the coordinate space and storing the position and rotational orientation information in a memory.

An apparatus useful for determining a coordinate position and rotational orientation of an object within a predefined coordinate space, the apparatus comprising:

• a) a plurality of unique position markers arranged in predetermined positional locations within the coordinate space such that at least one position marker is within view of the object and each position marker comprising a machine-readable code;
• b) an image acquisition system, comprised of a machine vision system, the machine vision system comprising a camera, a light source, and image capture electronics, mounted on the object, for acquiring an image of the position markers within view;
• c) an image processing system for processing pixels in the acquired image to determine the identity of each position marker, the position of each position marker relative to the object, the rotational orientation of each position marker relative to the object, the rotational orientation of each position marker relative to the object;
• and
• d) a post processing system for calculating the position of the object and the rotational orientation of the object in the coordinate space.