Technology Overview

 

• Patent-pending optics

• IR or Visible Lights

• Coded Beacons (high speed flashing for unique ID)

• Low Cost

• Low Processing and Operating Power

• Low Latency

• Privacy – Not a camera - No images taken or stored.
   

 

The Challenges We Solve

 

The Problem with Visual Slam

• Uncontrolled environment (complex scenes,
  random lighting environments, motion blur)

• Huge data pipeline (1 Megapixel camera at 50FPS generates
  >50Mbytes of data/second)

 

The Sixdof Solution

• Concentrate only on bright and high contrast objects with shutters of <1ms

• Image compression at optical domain

• Small data sets allow SLAM iterations as rapidly as every 1ms

• At 1KHz frame rates user movements are typically well below 1o angular and <1cm translational

 

 

Our Data Reduction Technique

Our core IP involves compressing two dimensional images into one dimensional representation while conserving angular entropy. As illustrated with the curved dome slit over a linear CMOS sensor below, light from any elevation angle β arriving at a given azimuth angle α will be integrated at the same pixel, while light from different azimuth angles α will be mapped to a unique pixel on the sensor.

The result is an instantaneous 1-dimensional representation of the 2-dimensional image scene. Using 2 perpendicular sensors we can then reconstruct both the azimuth and elevation angles to all the lights in a scene with a fraction of the data bandwidth.

​

We have developed a custom toroidal compression lens which we are manufacturing via injection molding.

 

Toroid Lens Module Performance

 

• Large field of view (>120 degrees in both axes)

• High optical efficiency – large NA

• Very high image resolution

• Single element optic design

• 1K pixel low-cost linear CMOS sensor

• 0.5 mSec shutter or less

• Up to 1KHz readout rate

• At 8-bit quantization, still only 1MByte/sec
  of data per sensor

Summary – Unique Benefits

 

• Uses existing room lighting as reference beacons

• Low-cost, low-power and installation-free

• Large field of view with very low data bandwidth

• Tracking rates up to 1KHz

• End-to-end latency (motion to absolute pose data) as low as 2ms

• Minimal disruption to work site

• Avoid Security and privacy issues of cameras

• Flexible integration