2D and 3D Image Sensors

The growing development of robots which do more and more complex work in unstructured environments makes a compact 2D and 3D vision system necessary 3D vision is either very useful or indispensable to resolve some problems connected with autonomous movements. These systems are impeded by the absence of real 3D sensors collecting panoramic range data at medium distance (0 to 10 meters) in a large volume (up to 100 m3). We describe a certain number of solutions to this general problem, first we describe a 3D laser triangulation system implemented for a mobile robot. This system is capable of panoramic vision over a full 360° range around the robot. Numerous sorts of range finders (optical and acoustical) are connected to a 2D machine vision (AVISO ITMI SYSTEM) using various types of cameras (vidicon, CCD,PSD). In this case, we can use all the software package developed for this 2D machine vision (CAIMAN or CALIFE).To add the intelligence needed for a reliable measurement system, a calibration procedure has been designed. This system could be tested in various fields of application: arm transfer in the neighborhood of an object to be manipulated, trajectory planning, and adaptative positioning, are typical tasks for an intelligent robot system.absolute location of a mobile robot in a crowded surrounding,audiovisual field for incrusting objects or actors in a 3D synthetic picture.In some cases, an optoelectronic remote tracking and measuring system must be developed to track the location of a moving target (in three dimensions).