Realize robot autonomous perception and obstacle avoidance, diverse sensor options

Enthusiasts.com reports (Text/Li Ningyuan) With the rapid development of the level, robots have played the role of right-hand men in many industries. Whether it is production on the production line, services in the consumer field, or companionship in daily life, robots are taking on more tasks and playing a more important role.

In order for robots to complete tasks efficiently and safely, the perception and obstacle avoidance link is particularly critical. In fact, there are already many types and quantities of applications in traditional robots, and the key data provided by sensors are indispensable in pressure, temperature, speed, etc. With the upgrading of robots, the ability of robots to perceive and avoid obstacles is becoming more and more important.

Realizing autonomous perception and obstacle avoidance

of robots The obstacle avoidance function of robots is based on the ability to perceive the surrounding environment. After perception, data processing and analysis are reflected in the ability of robots to perceive and avoid obstacles when moving autonomously. The perfection of this function is directly related to the operating efficiency and safety of the robot. A robot with efficient obstacle avoidance function can move freely in various environments without human intervention, which not only greatly improves work efficiency, but also significantly reduces the damage and failures that may be caused by collisions, ensuring the long life of the robot.

Taking the industrial field as an example, there are many solutions for robot obstacle avoidance, including but not limited to ultrasonic obstacle avoidance, obstacle avoidance, laser obstacle avoidance, visual obstacle avoidance, etc. As we all know, the overall cost of ultrasonic and infrared solutions is relatively low, so they are widely used in the above.

Ultrasonic obstacle avoidance has good recognition of solid obstacles and transparent surfaces. Even in a smoky environment, ultrasonic waves can still detect objects in the environment well. Infrared technology has fast sensing response and low cost. It can now effectively distinguish detection and interference signals. The shortcomings of nonlinearity and dependence on target reflectivity have also been greatly improved compared with the past.

As a cost-effective sensing method, it is mature enough in detection, tracking, and positioning functions and has a wide range of applicability. It is also widely used in robots. In robot applications, medium and long-range radars are generally more common. Now sensing is also used in robot perception and obstacle avoidance. This kind of perception is less affected by environmental conditions and has obvious effects in outdoor mobile and dark light automation factory robot applications.

In addition, its high resolution can make denser point cloud detection of the detected object, and the collected point density can provide high fidelity. This clear obstacle avoidance data collection is a very important decision-making basis for mobile robot obstacle avoidance. Sufficiently reliable data also ensures the improvement of robot autonomy.

Laser chips used for robot obstacle avoidance

Laser obstacle avoidance is widely used in the field of robots. Although the cost will be slightly higher, it can achieve more accurate and consistent obstacle avoidance effects, and can provide the system with higher recognition and better consistency. Both edge-emitting laser EEL and vertical cavity surface-emitting laser chip VCSEL have many applications.

EEL has more advantages in high power density and high pulse power. This light source technology is also stable under ambient light and has slightly worse temperature drift. VCSEL is also stable under ambient light, with more stable temperature drift. It also has the characteristics of high power scalability and can be used as devices of different power levels. In addition, its beam quality is higher than that of EEL.

Laser technology brings high added value to the design of perception and obstacle avoidance. The more uniform spot of laser technology makes the image quality higher; the extremely narrow spectral bandwidth makes it more stable under ambient light and has smaller temperature drift; the more stable characteristics under high temperature adapt to the design of more application scenarios; the bandwidth of high-speed switching provides a higher design upper limit and can support high-frequency debugging, the most typical of which is the application of ToF.

Among the many technical routes of LiDAR, each light source has its own suitable application scenario. In addition to considering the characteristics and basic requirements of LiDAR, it is also necessary to start from user needs. The first thing to consider is what kind of LiDAR different robots need, and the scanning method from rotation to all-solid state.

Summary

The robot's perception and obstacle avoidance ability is the core competitiveness. Each function of perception, positioning, mapping, navigation, recognition, and obstacle avoidance cannot be separated from accurate environmental data collection. Many sensor devices provide the robot system with as detailed environmental data as possible. In the future, these sensors will be further integrated and combined with ML reasoning to achieve in-depth environmental analysis. The robot will also be able to perceive any surrounding targets in real time.