Sensors

Ultrasound transducersDecember 15, 2007

For indoor acquisition, our plarforms are equipped with a sonar belt composed of 12 Maxbotix EZ-2 ultrasound transducers. The sensors are positioned all around the robot; they are activated in groups, so to prevent crosstalk. The control electronics interfacing the transducer with the data-acquisition PC has been designed and built by POLIMI.
These sensors have limited [...]

Inertial measurement unit

The sensors mounted on the data-acquisition robot platform include an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) providing 3-axis angular orientation, acceleration, rate-of-turn and Earth magnetic field data. We used an Xsense MTi device, selecting the version with 1,7g full scale acceleration and 150deg/s full scale rate of turn.

Onboard camera systems

Rawseeds’ sensor suite includes many vision components. Specifically, we used:

binocular and trinocular black-and-white (B/W) vision;
normal perspective, color and B/W cameras;
omnidirectional color vision with hyperbolic mirror.

The binocular vision system is composed of a two-camera Videre Design STH-DCSG-VAR system (two FireWire, B/W, 640×480 pixel cameras mounted on a common mechanical frame that allows for an adjustable [...]

Laser range finders

Rawseeds’ data-gathering platform is equipped with two classes of Laser Range Finders (LRF).

Short-range (4m range, less at low reflectivity), cheap LRF. We use two Hokuyo URG-04LX LRFs.
Medium- and long-range (respectively <30m and <100m range at 100% reflectivity) high-performance LRFs. We use Sick LMS200 and LMS291.