Tridar: A Hybrid Sensor for Exploiting the Complimentary Nature of Triangulation and LIDAR technologies

Abstract

3D ranging technologies generally fall into either position-based (triangulation) or time-based (LIDAR) approaches. Triangulation can provide much higher precision at close to mid-range but degrades quickly with the square of distance. LIDARs can provide reasonable precision over much longer distances but, unlike triangulation, they do not improve in capabilities at short range where precision and speed are critical for many applications such as autonomous rendezvous and docking, guidance and navigation, obstacle avoidance, and inspection. This paper discusses the complementary nature of the two technologies and presents an overview of a hybrid Triangulation-LIDAR sensor (TriDAR) currently under development at Neptec. This design has been chosen as an autonomous rendezvous & docking sensor for the Hubble Robotic Vehicle (HRV) but other space and terrestrial applications are also discussed. Performance estimates of the hybrid sensor are also presented.