Wire harnesses are essential hardware for electronic systems in modern automotive vehicles. With a shift in the automotive industry towards electrification and autonomous driving, more and more automotive electronics are responsible for energy transmission and safety-critical functions such as maneuvering, driver assistance, and safety system. This paradigm shift places more demand on automotive wiring harnesses from the safety perspective and stresses the greater importance of high-quality wire harness assembly in vehicles. However, most of the current operations of wire harness assembly are still performed manually by skilled workers, and some of the manual processes are problematic from different perspectives, such as quality control and ergonomics. There is also a persistent demand in the industry to increase competitiveness and gain market share. Hence, assuring assembly quality while improving ergonomics and optimizing labor costs is desired. Robotized assembly, accomplished by robots or in human-robot collaboration, is a key enabler for fulfilling the increasingly demanding quality and safety as it enables more replicable, transparent, and comprehensible processes than completely manual operations. However, robotized assembly of wire harnesses is challenging in real environments due to the flexibility of the deformable objects, though many preliminary automation solutions have been proposed under simplified industrial configurations. Previous research efforts have proposed the use of computer vision technology to facilitate robotized automation of wire harness assembly, enabling the robots to better perceive and manipulate the flexible wire harness. This article presents an overview on computer vision technology proposed for robotized wire harness assembly and derives research gaps that require further study to facilitate a more practical robotized assembly of wire harness.

翻译：线束是现代汽车电子系统的核心硬件组件。随着汽车产业向电气化和自动驾驶转型，越来越多的汽车电子设备承担着能量传输及安全关键功能，如操控、驾驶员辅助和安全系统。这种范式转变从安全角度对汽车线束提出了更高要求，并凸显了高质量线束装配在车辆中的重要性。然而，当前大部分线束装配操作仍由熟练工人手动完成，部分人工流程在质量控制和工效学等方面存在隐患。同时，行业对提升竞争力与扩大市场份额的需求持续存在。因此，在改善工效学与优化劳动力成本的同时确保装配质量成为迫切需求。通过机器人或人机协作实现的机器人化装配，能够提供比纯人工操作更具可重复性、透明性和可追溯性的工艺流程，是满足日益严苛的质量与安全要求的关键手段。但由于线束这类可变形物体的柔性特征，在真实环境中实施机器人化装配仍面临挑战——尽管已有诸多基于简化工业配置的初步自动化方案被提出。既有研究尝试通过计算机视觉技术辅助线束装配的机器人化自动进程，使机器人能更好地感知并操控柔性线束。本文系统综述了面向机器人化线束装配的计算机视觉技术，并归纳了为实现更实用的机器人化线束装配而亟待深入研究的理论空白。