Visual detection of 3D obstacles using gated images

We present further results in a novel method of visual obstacle detection. In this method, scenes are illuminated by short laser pulses, and images are captured by a gated camera. By controlling the pulse width and the gating time, it is possible to obtain images that contain only objects within a predefined distance. The rest of the scene remains invisible. We previously presented preliminary results confirming the method´s feasibility, in this paper, we focus on the results obtained for more complex scenes with large 3D objects. The experiments again confirm that the method can be prospectively used to create robust and reliable systems for vision-based navigation. However, we also observed many unexpected effects that require further experiments and theoretical studies.