METHOD AND DEVICE FOR ESTIMATING POSE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING SOCKET AND AUTONOMOUS CHARGING ROBOT EMPLOYING THE SAME

The present disclosure provides is a method and device for accurately estimating a pose of a charging socket of an electric vehicle regardless of a shape of the charging socket, so that an electric vehicle charging robot may precisely move a charging connector toward the charging socket of the electric vehicle and couple the charging connector to the charging socket. According to an aspect of an exemplary embodiment, a method of estimating the pose of the charging socket of an electric vehicle includes: acquiring an RGB image and a depth map of the charging socket; detecting a keypoint of the charging socket based on the RGB image; deriving a first estimated pose of the charging socket based on the depth map; and deriving a second estimated pose of the charging socket based on the keypoint of the charging socket and the first estimated pose.