Abstract
Measuring the force acting on a flexible wire by using a force/torque sensor is difficult when the flexural rigidity of the wire is small, because the wire buckles and the force acting on the wire is smaller than the force that can be measured by the force/torque sensor. This paper shows a method of estimating the force acting on a wire from its shape observed by stereo vision. The force is obtained continuously by using visual tracking. Consequently, we propose a strategy of inserting the wire into a hole on a wall by using the estimated force. Three experiments have been successfully carried out.
