MARS DESERT RESEARCH STATION

Science Report – March 19th

Stereoscopy

After few days of tests and calibration, finally I have configured stereoscopy system on Gaja rover.

The idea of stereoscopy is based on how human sight works. Given two shifted pictures, human mind creates an illusion of depth and 3D.
 This solution is implemented in our system.

First part of it consist of 2 cameras placed about 7 cm from each other, on a moving mounting on a rover. This distance is approximately the same as between human eyeballs. The second one are special Virtual Reality Goggles with LCD screen displaying the video. Video for each eye comes from different camera so they are shifted a bit.

Our tests proved that wearing goggles you can feel like observing the world from robot’s point of view. The depth of image is not as visible as natural sight, but someone can clearly tell if some object is closer of further than another.

This system can be useful in many fields. For example, when you operate a robot, you can now better recognize the surroundings  and plan every move, if you know where exactly in space  everything is placed.