Sensing of Real Environment by Stereo Omnidirectional System (SOS)

It is necessary for a man-machine interface and tele-control of a robot to acquire a wide field view and a high degree of three-dimensional information of dynamic environment. In this paper, we proposed a stereo omnidirectional system, named SOS. The system can take all directional views and depth maps from an observation point, in real-time, by using the component constructed of sixty cameras. The cameras are sepa-rated into twenty stereo vision units. Each unit is composed of three cameras that are arranged horizontally and vertically. These units are arranged on each face of a regular icosahedron and each stereo vision unit is arranged so that it does not obstruct the view of other units. As a result, we succeeded in reducing the size of the sensor, securing the base line length to generate the depth value with enough precision to allow the simultaneous acquisition of the color images and depth maps omnidirectionally in three dimensions.