Received July 23, 2021, accepted August 6, 2021, date of publication August 12, 2021, date of current version August 19, 2021. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3104514 A Comparative Review of Hand-Eye Calibration Techniques for Vision Guided Robots IKENNA ENEBUSE 1 , MATHIAS FOO 2 , (Member, IEEE), BABUL SALAM KSM KADER IBRAHIM 3 , (Member, IEEE), HAFIZ AHMED 4 , (Senior Member, IEEE), FHON SUPMAK 5 , AND ODONGO STEVEN EYOBU 6 1 Institute for Future Transport and Cities, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, U.K. 2 School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K. 3 School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Automotive Engineering, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, U.K. 4 Nuclear Futures Institute, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2DG, U.K. 5 Oxford Vision and Sensor Technology, Coventry CV4 7EZ, U.K. 6 Geo-spatial Data and Computational Intelligence Laboratory, School of Computing and Informatics Technology, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda Corresponding author: Odongo Steven Eyobu (odongo.eyobu@mak.ac.ug) The work of Hafiz Ahmed was supported by the Sêr Cymru programme by Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). ABSTRACT Hand-eye calibration enables proper perception of the environment in which a vision guided robot operates. Additionally, it enables the mapping of the scene in the robots frame. Proper hand-eye calibration is crucial when sub-millimetre perceptual accuracy is needed. For example, in robot assisted surgery, a poorly calibrated robot would cause damage to surrounding vital tissues and organs, endangering the life of a patient. A lot of research has gone into ways of accurately calibrating the hand-eye system of a robot with different levels of success, challenges, resource requirements and complexities. As such, academics and industrial practitioners are faced with the challenge of choosing which algorithm meets the implementation requirements based on the identified constraints. This review aims to give a general overview of the strengths and weaknesses of different hand-eye calibration algorithms available to academics and industrial practitioners to make an informed design decision, as well as incite possible areas of research based on the identified challenges. We also discuss different calibration targets, which is an important part of the calibration process that is often overlooked in the design process. INDEX TERMS Calibration target, camera-world transform, computer vision, hand-eye calibration, robot- hand transform, rotation, translation, vision guided robot. I. INTRODUCTION Industrial robots have been around for decades, first gaining popularity in the automotive industry [1]. Automotive plants were suitable for early industrial robots because the tasks in these plants involve a high level of repeatability, large payloads, and moderate speeds. Robots are also being used in a growing number of sectors, such as chicken deboning in the food industry [2]–[4], drug manufacturing in the pharma- ceutical industry [5], [6], and aircraft engine construction in the aerospace industry [7]–[9]. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), over 1.7 million new industrial robots will be deployed globally in 2021 [10], and vision systems are now becoming a major component of many The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Huiyu Zhou. industrial robots as they improve the capabilities of robots in operation. For example, vision guided robots can allow for variability in the positioning of work object or deviations in programmed pathway without breaking the production flow [11]–[13]. Emerging applications demand that industrial robots not only be faster, but also be able to accurately identify and find parts that are randomly placed on moving conveyors, containers, or on pallets [14]–[16]. Machine vision systems, which have been around for decades, are now being used in conjunction with robotics to aid automation systems in the processing of such components [17], [18]. Vision guided robotics (VGR) are rapidly becoming a key enabler for the automation of a broad range of processes in a wide range of industries. A typical vision guided robot has a camera attached close to the robot hand or gripper with VOLUME 9, 2021 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 113143