Depth measurement using single camera with fixed camera parameters

Owing to the space limitation and the strict requirement on operation, depth measurement using single visual sensor is necessary in many applications, such as mini-robot, precision processing and micro/nano-manipulation. Depth from defocus (DFD), a typical method applied in depth reconstruction, has been extensively researched and has developed greatly in recent years. However, all the existing DFD algorithms has focused only on the situation that blurring images with different camera parameters (i.e. focal length or radius of the lens), and it resulted in the inapplicability of these algorithms in cases where any change of camera parameters is absolutely forbidden. Therefore a novel DFD method considering different images with fixed camera parameters is given. First, the blurring imaging model is constructed with the relative blurring and the diffusion equation. Secondly the relation between depth and blurring is discussed. Subsequently, the depth measurement problem is transformed into an optimisation issue. Finally, simulations and experiments are conducted to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.