Chris Osterwood, Founder and CEO of Capable Robot Components, presents the “How to Choose a 3D Vision Sensor” tutorial at the May 2019 Embedded Vision Summit.
Designers of autonomous vehicles, robots and many other systems are faced with a critical challenge: Which 3D vision sensor technology to use? There are a wide variety of sensors on the market, employing modalities including passive stereo, active stereo, time of flight, 2D and 3D lasers and monocular approaches. This talk provides an overview of 3D vision sensor technologies and their capabilities and limitations, based on Osterwood’s experience selecting the right 3D technology and sensor for a diverse range of autonomous robot designs.
There is no perfect sensor technology and no perfect sensor, but there is always a sensor which best aligns with the requirements of your application—you just need to find it. Osterwood describes a quantitative and qualitative evaluation process for 3D vision sensors, including testing processes using both controlled environments and field testing, and some surprising characteristics and limitations he’s uncovered through that testing.
