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

SBIR 第一阶段：使用微光场相机进行指尖测距

• 批准号: 1648388
• 负责人: Henry Baker
• 金额: $ 22.49万
• 依托单位: EPIImaging, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-01 至 2017-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1648388&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Fingertip; Ranging; Micro

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.

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于它提供了一种新颖的功能，其质量，易于放置和部署的规模将在机器人操作中引入新的机会，而零件和机器人相对位置的不确定性。其中包括小批量的生产（无法进行固定的成本效益），在狭窄空间中的检查和修复（必须在执行器上进行3D传感），危险情况（人类存在会导致生活风险）以及与人的协作互动（必须避免无意间接触）。在拟议的开发中，机器人掌握将通过每个指尖处的动态3D范围映射授予能力，从而可以直接计算量身定制的轨迹和速度，该轨迹和速度量身定制的几何形状和即将被操纵的结构。 将技术扩展到3D Vision和对象建模的更大挑战中，可以在各种应用中产生经济影响。 其中包括自主和半自治的车辆导航（无人机，汽车），虚拟现实和增强现实界面，3D电信和沟通，文化场地建模以及沉浸式电影。 每个领域的可靠性和精确度提高，功率和计算成本的降低可以为价格/性能的阈值带来可行性的应用。本小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I阶段项目项目将在近距离操作中建立一个新的实时无源视觉视觉感知，以用于机器人操作，为3D数据提供准确，精确，精确，精确，精确，精确。双眼成像系统由于无法基于匹配的方法来在差异范围较大的复杂设置中提供可靠的深度测量，因此在接近范围的机器人技术中尚未显示出成功。使用一些摄像机的当前方法是基于匹配的，因此犯错误，使用在覆盖范围内指数级的搜索，因此很昂贵，并提供了世界上对世界的简约描述（点云），因此描述能力较弱。 所有这些都会降低其处理的可靠性和在现实世界中其分析的效用。 该项目的技术与最近的晶圆级集成模块软件包相结合，通过使用密集的采样，扩展基线以及维护和利用图像空间连续性来克服这些限制。技术挑战涉及机械和电气设计，以使微观场范围内通过对嵌入式处理器进行分析，成像器/光学/光学系统的近场校准以及与机器人控制的协调，以评估测量精度和精确度。该项目将导致机器人指尖上的高质量框架率灯场范围。