iRobot, Advanced Scientific Concepts Team on Robotic Sensing Technology

iRobot Corp. says it has found a new solid-state sensor that will help make military robots autonomous.

Known as 3-D Flash Laser Radar (3D Flash Ladar), the sensor uses no moving parts and produces a "movie-like" image that could improve the depth perception of so-called PackBots. As a result, military robots would take another step toward autonomy and possibly even eliminate the need for soldiers to remotely control them during battle.

"Using this sensor, a robot can tell how far it is from a tree, a car or a person," says Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman of the board of iRobot. "It gives you a movie-like image, as if you had a video recorder."

Developed by Advanced Scientific Concepts, Inc., the new 3-D Flash Ladar eliminates the need for a mechanical scanning system. Instead, the solid-state device sends out a pulse, or flash, of laser light and then picks up the return signal in a pixilated fashion.

"The image that comes back to you is like a solid-model movie," Greiner says. "It gives you depth over time. A laser won't do that unless you scan it across the z-axis."

iRobot, which makes the famed Roomba home-vacuuming robot and builds remotely controlled PackBots for military use, believes the new technology could represent a huge step up over existing sensors. Unlike cameras, which depend upon human depth perception to fill in missing information, the new sensor could provide accurate distances to obstacles in its path. Moreover, the solid state sensor doesn't require a rotating scanning mechanism and is able to see through dust and darkness.

"We've used every type of commercially available sensor," Greiner says. "We've tried them all out, and so far they've always come up short."

iRobot engineers say 3-D Flash Ladar's ability to provide a sense of depth should enable robot builders to focus on the task of writing software algorithms for the robots, instead of creating filtering algorithms for the sensors. As a result, it could enable them to work on concepts that would help them bring them closer to the creation of an autonomous military robot.

The military uses such robots to search under vehicles for bombs and examine the interior of buildings without unduly endangering a soldier's life.

iRobot will develop the 3-D Flash Ladar technology for use on PackBots as well as other types of unmanned ground vehicles. The technology is currently too expensive for use on home robots such as the Roomba. It is, however, expected to be quickly adopted in military applications. The company will begin showing it to military customers in 2008.

"We've been looking for good-quality, continual-depth information for a long time," Greiner says. "This will allow the robot to see everything in its path."