Abstract
We have developed a noncontact multi-light source optical proximity sensor that can measure the distance, orientation, and curvature of a surface. Beams of light are sequentially focused from light emitting diodes onto a target surface. An analog light sensor - a planar PIN diode - localizes the position of the resultant light spot in the field of view of the sensor. The 3-D locations of the light spots are then computed by triangulation. The distance, orientation, and curvature of the target surface is computed by fitting a surface to a set of data points on the surface.
The proximity sensor that has been built uses 18 light sources arranged in 5 conical rings. The sensor has a range of 10 cm where it can measure the distance of approximately 200 discrete points per second with a precision of 0.1mm, and then compute surface orientation with a precision of l.0°. This sensor may be used by a robotic manipulator to home in on an object and to trace the object’s surface.
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© 1987 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Kanade, T., Fuhrman, M. (1987). A Noncontact Optical Proximity Sensor for Measuring Surface Shape. In: Kanade, T. (eds) Three-Dimensional Machine Vision. The Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, vol 21. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1981-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1981-8_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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