Battlefields will be big test for 'seeing' robot

In the next 18 months, the US is likely to deploy a potentially breakthrough robot-vision system in Iraq and Afghanistan.

from the January 25, 2008 edition

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A 3-D map in nanoseconds

Flash LADAR overcomes such problems by quickly creating 3-D images of an area. Every five nanoseconds (five billionths of a second), the laser sends out a pulse. The system then measures the amount of time it takes the pulse to reach the objects in view and be reflected back. It then creates a 3-D image of the area from one meter out to over a kilometer ahead, depending on the laser used. All of this happens in 200 nanoseconds, almost instantaneously.

The laser "is just a glorified flash bulb," says Steve Silverman, a senior systems engineer at ASC. "We use lasers because we want that flash to be very short in duration and that allows us to make the system very efficient and low power."

The current system iRobot and ASC are developing will focus on the immediate foreground because it's the most important region for a robot to perceive as it tries to navigate a street or house.

"So for instance if it was indoors in a building, it would be able to recognize a set of stairs and set itself to climb those stairs," says Mr. Hudson.

"There are sensors out there that do almost the same thing," says Chris Urmson, director of technology for a Carnegie Mellon University project to build self-navigating vehicles. But he adds that their size, among other issues, limits their possible applications. "[Current sensors] are fine in our research domain, but not as good for production applications as the flash LADAR system."

Officials at iRobot estimate market-ready versions of their machines will be available in the next 12 to 18 months. The first robots will be for the military. But as the technology evolves, it could encompass a range of applications, they say, such as pedestrian-avoidance systems for cars or 3-D mapping for Hollywood filmmakers, who could determine the geometry of a scene so they could later insert computer-generated effects.

Still, Dr. Urmson remains cautious until he sees the new flash LADAR system for himself. "There've been promises of this kind of technology for many years now, and we've seen varying results," he says. "Hopefully, these guys have got it right."

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