In part 3 of a four part discussion on "basebot technologies" GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. described the architecture of their low cost sensor fusion vision system. GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging Mobile Service Robot (MSR) industry revolutionizing their development and usage with their "Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security, and Service."

Basebot technologies are the power, locomotion, sensor and software requirements of utilitarian mobile service robots (MSRs).

"Traditional video centric machine vision is very expensive in dollars, power consumed, and time required to update. Taking a clue from compound insect eyes in nature, we invented the CompoundedSensorArray, CSA, which 'creates' 250 facets by scanning 10 infrared range finders over 25 positions every 1-1.5 seconds. We fuse this 180 degree Field of View (FOV) with sonar range finders to give greater range and reliability to the CSA for locating stationary and/or dynamic obstacles quickly and at low cost, both in dollars and time," observed Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems.

The CSA system also includes a high speed stepping motor, its control electronics, and the software to correctly assemble the facets' ranging data into an abstracted image for use by our automatic, self-navigation software, GeckoNav.

"This low cost, sensor fusion system not only provides the critical, actionable situation awareness information needed by the AI software, but also satisfies these requirements at a lower cost, in both dollars and power, while updating quicker than costly video centric solutions. This lowers the CareBot's cost to the end user while maintaining high level utility and increased ROI to our stockholders," concluded Spencer.