Towards a 3D Vision System based on Single-Pixel imaging and indirect Time-of-Flight for drone applications

In this paper, a theoretical analysis of a vision system for 2D/3D single-pixel imaging using principles of compressed sensing and Indirect-Time-of-flight measurements is presented. The goal is to use this system for autonomous drone navigation in environments with adverse conditions where typical sensors used by RGB or RGB-Depth cameras typically fail. The harsh environments considered include smoke, rain, or fog. The performance evaluation is based on the signal-to-noise ratio considering different levels of background illumination, measured depths oscillating between 1 m and 10 m, different percentages of object reflectivity, and finally, the achievable spatial resolution understood as the standard deviation of the distance measured for a particular object in the illuminated scene under a set of defined border conditions. For the vision system proposed, we consider active illumination consisting of an array of NIR LEDs emitting Hadamard illumination patterns, and a pulsed laser diode used for Indirect-Time-of-flight. We propose using an InGaAs NIR sensitive photodiode as a single-pixel detector. Since the proposed vision system will be mounted on a drone, parameters such as weight, dimensions, power consumption, and processing time were considered to maximize its efficiency.