High speed range image acquisition and analysis

Outlines the work which has completed at Advanced robotics Research Limited. This programme has produced a prototype 3-D range imager with an integral software analysis package and it is capable acquiring and analysing a 100×256 range image in a little over 2.5 seconds. The 3-D range imaging sensor uses a laser stripe scanning technique to triangulate the distance to each point in the scene and can acquire an 8-bit deep, 100×256 pixel, range image in 2 seconds. The ability to acquire images at this rate led directly to the requirement to be able to analyse them at the same rate. Further, the purpose of this programme has been to assess the suitability of this type of imager for use in mobile robotics applications