TITLE: A Low-Cost, Compact, Lightweight 3D Range Sensor

PRESENTER: Nawid Jamali, http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/db/staff/info/nawidj.html, nawidj@cse.unsw.edu.au

AFFILIATION:Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems, School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW, http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au

DATE: Friday 1st December 2006

TIME: 16:00:00

PLACE: CSE Seminar Room, Level 1, K17

ABSTRACT:

There are many applications that can benefit from the ability to
acquire 3D data from environmental surroundings. Examples include
navigation, mapping, localisation and robot mobility. However,
in the past, the technology for acquiring dense, wide ranging,
accurate 3D data was too expensive, heavy and/or power hungry for
many projects that could benefit from its use.

In this presentation, I will describe a highly integrated 3D range
scanner, based on a low-cost, lightweight Hokuyo 2D linescan LIDAR.
This sensor is almost an order of magnitude cheaper than comparable
solutions, yet produces accurate, dense 3D data in indoor environments.
It is also small, light and power efficient enough to be mounted,
complete with power supply, on toy-based robots. In addition,
this sensor features variable and continuously-improving resolution,
foveated sensing in the middle of its field of view and the ability
to lock into specific angles when in 2D scanning mode to facilitate
leveling on uneven terrain or to act as a vertical terrain profile
scanner.

This is a practice presentation for a talk that will be given at the
Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation in New Zealand.

BIOGRAPHY OF SPEAKER:

Nawid graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of
Computer Engineering in 2004. He completed Master of Commerce, majoring in
Finance in 2006. Currently he is a PhD student at the ARC Centre of
Excellence for Autonomous Systems in the School of Computer Science and
Engineering at the University of New South Wales. His PhD research is on
application of machine learning to empower robots with the ability to
acquire intelligent manipulation through learning.

Seminar information is also available at
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/db/ai/seminars/list/index.html

Host:

Waleed Kadous

Seminar Convenor:

Van Hai Ho