  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 wire 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 in terms of 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 practical
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 of 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
harnesses.
