US 11,861,276 B2
Locating a center point of a lug nut for an automated vehicle wheel removal system
Bradley Vargo, White Lake, MI (US); Keegan Elliott, Marshall, MI (US); William Mapes, Grosse Ille Township, MI (US); Scott Coburn, Howell, MI (US); Riyadir Alalami, Novi, MI (US); and Anoopkumar Sandip Sonar, Somerville, MA (US)
Assigned to RoboTire, Inc., Canton, MI (US)
Filed by RoboTire, Inc., Canton, MI (US)
Filed on Oct. 28, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/975,910.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/273,145, filed on Oct. 28, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0137789 A1, May 4, 2023
Int. Cl. G05B 15/02 (2006.01); G06F 30/27 (2020.01); B60B 7/06 (2006.01)
CPC G06F 30/27 (2020.01) [B60B 7/068 (2013.01); G05B 15/02 (2013.01)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system for locating a center of a lug nut comprising:
one or more processors; and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a plurality of instructions, which when executed, cause the one or more processors to:
obtain a two-dimensional image of a vehicle wheel, the vehicle wheel including a set of lug nuts;
determine an initial center point of at least a first lug nut by processing the two-dimensional image using a first machine learning model;
obtain a three-dimensional image of at least a portion of the vehicle wheel including the first lug nut;
locate a set of edges at various points around a perimeter of the first lug nut by processing the three-dimensional image using a second machine learning model;
determine a set of distances between a point within the three-dimensional image that corresponds to the initial center point and the located set of edges;
update the initial center point of the first lug nut based on the determined set of distances; and
map a set of two-dimensional coordinates representing the initial center point to a set of three-dimensional coordinates representing the point within the three-dimensional image that corresponds to the initial center point.