Military Robots to Gain Advanced Sight

coondoggie brings us a NetworkWorld report discussing iRobot's plans to include Laser Radar technology in their military robots. Quoting: "Specifically the robot-maker is licensing Advanced Scientific Concepts' 3-D flash Ladar which uses laser beams to scan and process targets. The system has the ability to create a virtual 3D picture of an entire area. IRobot ... believes the technology will provide new navigation and mapping capabilities for future generations of robots and unmanned ground vehicles and pave the way for autonomous vehicles to lead convoys into dangerous territory, search contaminated buildings for casualties, or enable bomb squads to safely investigate suspicious objects."

Comments

lolturret

[Aardpig]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz5cl131KTk

Re:When can I get this in my Roomba?

[niceone]

Also, does anyone else find it disturbing that they also make military robots?

Yeah, one day soon your Roomba will get drafted and you'll die a slow agonising death, suffocated by a sea of dust bunnies.

Don't laugh. It could happen.

Re:When can I get this in my Roomba?

[DaveAtFraud]

Also, does anyone else find it disturbing that they also make military robots?

Let's see... The microwave oven was originally developed by Raytheon with the Amana unit eventually getting spun off. Boeing makes lots of military airplanes and systems besides their commercial jets. General Electric makes a variety of military stuff (e.g., jet engines, radar, etc.) as well as all of their consumer stuff. United Technologies makes jet engines for both military and commercial aviation. Back when I worked at TRW the company had both the Defense Systems Group I worked for as well as TRW Credit Data.

These are just a few businesses that have both military and civilian products. Better be careful or your Roomba will form a junta with your microwave oven and toaster and take over your house.

Cheers,
Dave

Finally, ASC downsizes their LIDAR. Right answer.

[Animats]

This is a big step forward. I know this technology. Back in 2004, when we were putting our DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle together, I went down to Advanced Scientific Concepts in Santa Barbara to see the thing. Back then, they had a prototype that worked, but it was on an optical bench (one of those big plates with screw holes to which you attach optical components), nowhere near ready to go on a vehicle. It was just too early. We had to go with SICK rotating-mirror line scanners, like everybody else. But I was convinced it was the right direction to go, and I dragged a venture capitalist who had some underperforming photonics companies down there to see the thing. He didn't want to fund them, because they were too far from a consumer product; the near term market was DoD-only.

ASC kept working, and by 2006 they had working portable prototypes. By 2007, you could buy a LIDAR about the size of a large-format camera for about $100,000. Now they've downsized it further.

Unlike the laser scanners with spinning mirrors or sensors, which is what everyone else uses, this technology has no moving parts. The system has two main components - a pulse laser with diffusing optics, and a detection and timing IC with one LIDAR receiver per pixel. Neither of these is inherently expensive in quantity. It may take a while to get this down to webcam prices, but $1000 is a reasonable near-term target.

It's amazing that this can be done in an eye-safe way, since this approach is subject to the radar equation - returned power decreases as the fourth power of the distance. But the detectors can be made good enough. Some of their more sensitive detectors use a photomultiplier tube technology, like a night vision system. Night vision systems use a photoelectric detector plate - when a photon hits it, an electron pops out. Electric fields are used to accelerate the electron, which then hits one of the electron detectors on a specially designed IC. Photomultipliers have been around for decades, and can detect single photons. The neat thing about the photoelectric effect is that it's at the atomic level, and happens in picoseconds. So it can be used as a light amplifier for a time-of-flight LIDAR.

The current generation of compact sensor is 128x128 pixels at 30Hz. The sensors are currently smaller than the lasers, but for smaller robots where you need only 10m of range or so, a smaller laser can be used.

This is the sensor that will make automatic driving commercially feasible.