eRTIS: A Fully Embedded Real Time 3D Imaging Sonar Sensor for Robotic Applications

Many popular advanced sonar systems provide accurate and reliable measurements containing crucial info needed by robotic applications such as range, bearing and reflection strength of the objects in the field of view. While these sensor systems provide these crucial pieces of information accurately, they are often limited by a lack of processing power and/or size which leads to them needing an external computing device to process all the information generated by the microphone array on the sensor. In this paper we present two versions of a novel fully embedded 3D sonar sensor which have different sensing architectures which enable 3D perception for robotic application in harsh conditions using ultrasound at low cost. Experimental results taken from an office environment will show the 3D localization capabilities and performance of the sensor, showing the sensor has a large field-of-view (FoV) with accurate 3D localization combined with real-time capabilities.