NEAR FIELD RANGING FOR ROBOTIC VISION APPLICATIONS

A SIMPLE TECHNIQUE BASED ON DIFFRACTION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES FOR MEASURING DISTANCES FROM CM TO KM RANGE USING OPTICAL AND MICROWAVE FREQUENCIES IS DESCRIBED. THE TECHNIQUE COMPLIMENTS CONVENTIONAL RADAR IN HAVING SENSITIVITY AT CLOSE RANGE AND IS IDEAL FOR APPLICATION TO ROBOTIC VISION FOR REMOTE IDENTIFICATION OF DISCREET OBJECTS. BY THE PROPER CHOICE OF FREQUENCIES, THE TECHNIQUEIS ALSO CAPABLE OF PROVIDING 'VISION' THROUGH FOG, SMOKE AND DUST. THE TECHNIQUE IS DEVELOPED FROM A LABORATORY OBSERVATION, FOR WHICH WE HAVE DEVELOPED THE BASIC THEORY. THE PROPOSED PHASE I EFFORT IS TO CARRY OUT MORE DETAILED EXPERIMENTS AT OPTICAL AND MICROWAVE FREQUENCIES FOR COMPARISON WITH DETAILED CALCULATIONS TO VERIFY THE BASIC THEORY, AND TO DETERMINE THE TYPE OF RANGE AND SENSITIVITY THAT CAN BE REALIZED WITH READILY AVAILABLE COMPONENTS THAT CAN LEAD TO SIMPLE, LOW COST AND FULLY SELF-CONTAINED SYSTEMS FOR RANGING AT DISTANCES WHERE NO SUCH SUITABLE SYSTEM EXISTS AT THE PRESENT TIME.