SBIR Phase I: Fingertip Ranging with Micro Light-Field Cameras

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于它提供了一种新的测距能力，其质量，易于放置和部署规模将为机器人操作带来新的机会，在零件和机器人的相对位置不确定的情况下。其中包括小批量生产（固定装置无法实现成本效益），密闭空间的检查和维修（必须在执行器上进行3D传感），危险情况（人类存在会危及生命）以及与人的协作互动（必须避免无意接触）。在提议的开发中，机器人的抓取将被赋予每个指尖的动态3D范围映射，从而能够根据即将被操纵的几何形状和结构直接计算轨迹和速度。将该技术扩展到3D视觉和对象建模的更大挑战中，可以在各种应用中提供经济影响。其中包括自主和半自动车辆导航（无人机、汽车）、虚拟现实和增强现实界面、3D电话会议和通信、文化遗址建模和沉浸式电影。在每个领域，可靠性和精度的提高与功耗和计算成本的降低都可以使应用程序在价格/性能上超过阈值，从而实现可行性。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）一期项目将为机器人操作建立一个新的近距离实时被动视觉感知水平，为准确、精确和快速的抓取提供3D数据。双目成像系统在近距离机器人领域尚未取得成功，因为其基于匹配的方法无法在视差范围较大的复杂环境中提供可靠的深度测量。目前使用少数相机的方法是基于匹配的，因此容易出错，使用在覆盖范围内呈指数级的搜索，因此成本高昂，并且提供对世界（点云）的简短描述，因此描述能力较弱。所有这些都降低了其处理的可靠性和分析在实际应用中的实用性。该项目的技术与最近的晶圆级集成模块封装相结合，通过使用密集采样，扩展基线以及保持和利用图像空间连续性来克服这些限制。技术挑战包括机械和电气设计，通过嵌入式处理器分析实现微光场测距，成像仪/光学/系统的近场校准，以及与机器人控制协调，以评估测量精度和精度。该项目将在机器人指尖上产生高质量的帧率光场测距。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project lies in its provision of a novel ranging capability whose quality, ease of placement, and scale in deployment will introduce new opportunities in robot operation in situations where there is uncertainty in the relative positions of parts and robots. These include small-batch production (where fixturing cannot be made cost effective), inspection and repair in confined spaces (where 3D sensing must be carried aboard the actuator), hazardous situations (where human presence incurs risk to life), and collaborative interaction with people (where inadvertent contact must be avoided). In the proposed development, robot grasp will be empowered with dynamic 3D range mapping at each fingertip, enabling direct computation of trajectories and velocities tailored to the geometry and structure about to be manipulated. Extension of the technology to the larger challenge of 3D vision and object modeling offers economic impact in diverse applications. These include autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicle navigation (drones, cars), virtual reality and augmented reality interfaces, 3D teleconferencing and communication, cultural site modeling, and immersive cinema. Each is an area where increases in reliability and precision with decreases in power and computational cost can bring an application over the threshold in price/performance, into viability.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will establish a new level of real-time passive visual perception in near-range for robot operation, providing 3D data for accurate, precise and rapid grasp. Binocular imaging systems have not demonstrated success in near range robotics due to the inability of their match-based methods to deliver reliable depth measures in complex settings where disparity range is large. Current methods using a few cameras are based on matching so make mistakes, use search that is exponential in covered range so are expensive, and deliver parsimonious descriptions of the world (point clouds) so are weak in descriptive power. All of these diminish the reliability of their processing and the utility of their analysis in real-world applications. The technology of this project combined with recent wafer-level integration module packages overcomes these limitations through use of dense sampling, extended baselines, and maintaining and exploiting image spatial continuity. The technical challenge involves mechanical and electrical design to enable micro light-field ranging with analysis on an embedded processor, near-field calibration of imagers/optics/system, and coordination of these with robot control for assessing measurement accuracy and precision. The project will result in high-quality frame-rate light-field ranging on a robot fingertip.