A robust electro-optical proximity-sensing system is presented. The proposed system comprises a proximity sensor and an active-sensing based robotic micro-motioncontrol technique. The new sensor design is capable of measuring the distance and twodimensional orientation of an object’s surface. It utilizes an amplitude-modulated-based electro-optical transducer and a novel electronic-interface circuit. The design of the electronic interface provides excellent noise immunity and a wide dynamic operating range.

Several novel ideas were employed in the development of an effective calibration process for the proximity sensor. A culibration-per-group-of-surfaees technique was successfully employed in an attempt to address the robustness problem of amplitudemodulation-based electro-optical proximity sensors to surface-refleetion characteristics, A calibration-point-distribution algorithm and a multi-region calibration technique are suggested to be combined with an active-sensing scheme. Together, these techniques significantly improve pose-estimations at near proximities. The grasping accuracy is increased by more than an order of magnitude relative to a single-measurement scheme.

An algorithm was designed to control the gripper’s micro-movements during the pre-grasping stage. The gripper is guided through a reliable trajectory, from the first proximity-measurement instance until a contact is made with the object’s surface.

An experimental setup was designed and implemented for the development and verification of these techniques in a simulated robotic environment. Experimental results for the sensor, using a variety of calibrated surfaces and materials, arc presented and discussed. The robustness of the proximity-sensing system was also verified for potential use in grasping objects with apriori non-calibrated surfaces.