Evaluation of On-Robot Depth Sensors for Industrial Robotics

Abstract

This work evaluates a Continuous Wave (CW) Time-of-Flight (ToF) camera, Stereoscopic camera, and LiDAR to determine if they are potential candidates for point-rich on-robot sensing in Speed and separation monitoring (SSM) applications. These experiments characterize the static and dynamic behaviors of the sensors while mounted on-robot. From these tests, it was found that ToF and Stereo cameras exhibit better performance to their more expensive LiDAR counterpart. Specifically, it was observed that the ToF camera demonstrated better depth accuracy while the Stereo camera generated better 3D reconstruction accuracy. Overall, ToF and Stereo Cameras demonstrate that with continued innovation and integration, these sensors could become the building blocks to point rich on-robot SSM.