An object handling apparatus capable of securely holding an object and
precisely transferring the held object from a first place to a second
place without need of a specific jig for positioning the object on a
pallet. A position of an object supplied to the first place is detected
by a first visual sensor to obtain a compensation amount for compensating
a position displacement of the supplied object. The object is held by a
robot hand having position/orientation compensated using the compensation
amount and position/orientation of the object held by the robot hand
relative to the robot hand is detected by a second visual sensor. A
displacement of the position/orientation of the object held by the robot
hand from a reference position/orientation is compensated based on the
detected position/orientation of the object on the robot hand, so that
the object held by the robot hand is precisely moved to have a
predetermined position/orientation to be transferred to the second place.
The robot hand may be a servo hand having fingers driven by one or more
servomotors so that position and force of the fingers in holding the
object is controlled.