Omnidirectional Camera with Unified RGBD Sensor for Mapping Remote Environments

This paper proposes the use of unified RGBD sensors in omni directional camera for constructing 3D maps of remote environments. The use of the unified sensor simplifies and accelerates the construction process. These advantages enable teleoperation systems to achieve faster refresh rate in visualizing 3D maps in operator´s displays. Since the unified RGBD sensor technology is still unavailable for production, we validate the camera design on a simulation system. This work shows an alternative approach for the near future on constructing 3D maps, which is currently performed using sophisticated and extensive methods. We further experimented the camera design on a simulated teleoperation system, in which a user may control a mobile robot to navigate and to explore remote environments. The results showed that this camera is effective in providing spatial and color information for modeling remote environment into 3D maps.