NODAR Bites into 3D Vision with its Hammerhead Technology
January 11, 2023
News
Somerville, MA. NODAR announced its Hammerhead Development Kit (DevKit), an untethered stereo vision software solution capturing real time 3D point cloud images from many differing cameras. NODAR’s DevKit processes images of road hazards as small as 10cm, 150m away, as well as more cumbersome objects as far as 1,250m away.
NODAR’s Hammerhead technology is based on the Hammerhead shark's placement of its eyes, and supports multiple cameras separated by extended distances, while each camera remains an independent mounted device.
Leveraging NODAR’s platform allows smart vehicle manufacturers to design cameras anywhere in a vehicle they see fit, such as a front fender or taillights. Why is this important? Well, for autonomous vehicles, one critical criterion is how well machine vision leverages object detection algorithms with advance cameras and sensors for real time recognition.
NODAR CEO Leaf Jiang says, “Every autonomous system must have the ability to ‘see’ and sense its environment in order to avoid obstacles and do path planning. In the automotive industry, 3D vision is the cornerstone of developing safer autonomous vehicles.”
NODAR has supplied its DevKits with visualization software, API access for real time data, data logging, and all necessary hardware including:
- Cameras
- Lenses
- Mounting bar
- Compute module
- Cables
Autonomous construction (think lengthy cranes), farm, and air taxi applications will benefit from NODAR’s Hammerhead technology as well as UAVs, trains, and robotics. NODAR has integrated its DevKits with an online calibration system for autonomous off-road and in-air edge deployments.
The future for NODAR is not just designing automotive solutions. Jiang continues, “Recently, we’ve been hearing increasingly about the automation of robotic systems beyond the automotive market, and that’s very exciting for us. The DevKit we are releasing makes NODAR technology accessible across a wide variety of markets and applications of autonomy, offering the reliability of active sensing systems at the price-point of cameras.”
For more information, visit nodarsensor.com/dev-kit.
Chad Cox. Production Editor, Embedded Computing Design, has responsibilities that include handling the news cycle, newsletters, social media, and advertising. Chad graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in Cultural and Analytical Literature.
