Emerging versatility of a scannerless range imager

Abstract

Sandia National Laboratories is nearing the completion of the initial development of a unique type of range imaging sensor. This innovative imaging optical radar is based on an active flood-light scene illuminator and an image intensified CCD camera receiver. It is an all solid-state device (no moving parts) and offers significant size, performance, reliability, simplicity, and affordability advantages over other types of 3D sensor technologies, including: scanned laser radar, stereo vision, and structured lighting. The sensor is based on low cost, commercially available hardware, and is very well suited for affordable application to a wide variety of military and commercial uses, including: munition guidance, target recognition, robotic vision, automated inspection, driver enhanced vision, collision avoidance, site security and monitoring, terrain mapping, and facility surveying. This paper reviews the sensor technology and its development for the advanced conventional munition guidance application, and discusses a few of the many other emerging applications for this new innovative sensor technology.