A 200Hz small range image sensor using a multi-spot laser projector

In this paper, a high-speed range image sensor using a multi-spot laser projector is constructed. Several highspeed range image sensors have been developed recently. Their sampling rate is around the video rate (30 Hz or so) and a faster sensor is required. The proposed sensor has achieved 200 Hz measurement. It consists of a commercially available laser projector and a high-speed CCD camera. The number of pixels is 361 and the measurement range is 800-2000 mm. Although the acquired range image is sparse, the proposed sensor is thought to be adequate for several applications such as robot vision because of its high-speed imaging and compactness. Some characteristics such as measurement errors are discussed, and the effectiveness of the proposed sensor is verified by experiments.