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 high-speed range image sensors have been developed recently. Their sampling rate is around the video rate (30Hz or so) and a faster sensor is required. The proposed sensor has achieved 200Hz 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 800–2000mm. 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.