HiPER 3-D: An Omnidirectional Sensor for High Precision Environmental 3-D Reconstruction

The environmental 3-D reconstruction is a strategic task in many contexts, above all, in infrastructure inspection and vehicle/robot automatic motion. In this paper, we present a patented sensor capable to recover 3-D data with a very high profile acquisition rate and perform an omnidirectional highly accurate environmental reconstruction: these skills are allowed by a profilometric laser approach coupled to a catadioptric system. After a presentation of the sensor´s functionality, its sensitivity is theoretically analyzed both in terms of maximum and medium error. This, not only for proving the sensor´s accuracy (which, anyway, has been also experimentally tested), but also for defining a design strategy which optimally sets up its geometrical parameters. Performance of a prototypal implementation of the sensor, as well as a calibration technique, are presented, and several indoor and outdoor 3-D reconstructions are shown.