Laser Triangulation Ranging System for Mobile Robots

摘要

A laser triangulation system for short range obstacle avoidance for mobile robots is discussed. The system was designed as an improvement over an earlier laser triangulation system. The new system was designed for use with an Adaptive Suspension Vehicle and the Mars Roving Vehicle; however, the new system is not limited to these two applications. A system overview is given, and then each component is discussed in detail. This report has discussed new scanning techniques and shown the feasibility of these in a new Multilaser/Multidetector system (ML/MD) laser triangulation system. A holographic scanner is used for rapid azimuth scanning, a galvanometric scanner is used for elevation scanning, special optics and optical fibers are used with individual detectors, a high power laser diode is used as the laser source, and a microprocessor and programmable timing module are used to control the system operation. Each element in the system is an improvement over existing scanning elements. And when a prototype is constructed, the author is fairly confident that the improvement over the existing ML/MD system will be tremendous. The new system should demonstrate high scan rates, high efficiencies, greater scan ranges, faster data collection, and greater flexibility.