Fujitsu, Fujitsu Laboratories Develop Real-time 3D Stereo Sensor

Fujitsu, Fujitsu Laboratories Develop Real-time 3D Stereo Sensor LSI for Robots

Sep 13, 2007 12:14
Toshiyuki Oomori, Nikkei Electronics

View seen from left eye

View seen from right eye

3D measurement results

Fujitsu Ltd. and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. announced, Sept. 12, 2007, that their joint development of an LSI chip, which performs processing for robots so they can recognize shapes and moves of subjects in real-time.

Like human eyes, the chip performs 3D stereo image processing, which senses the depth based on parallax between images transmitted from two cameras on the robot's both sides. Given its compact size and low power, the chip can be applied to relatively small robots, the companies said.

Featuring 256 parallel computing circuits, the chip can perform high-speed product-sum operation processing on image data. In addition, equipped with a dedicated circuit for calculating color gradation patterns in an image, the chip can extract about 2,000 edges, corners and other distinctions at 30 fps. Even faster pattern matching is also available through its parallel processing circuits that swiftly calculate matches in two patterns.

Furthermore, the chip supports matching at more precise resolutions than the pixel resolution, as well as matching by enlarging, downsizing and rotating patters that look different depending on viewing distances and angles. It consumes approximately 2.7 W when operating at 200 MHz.

Part of this new LSI is Fujitsu's development in "The Project for the Standard Platform of Next-Generation Robots" from fiscal 2005 to 2007, contracted by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) as part of its "21st Century Robot Challenge Program." The companies will reveal details of this LSI at the "25th Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan" to be held at Chiba Institute of Technology.