A Biomimetic Range Sensor for Autonomous Air Vehicles

"A novel biomimetic range sensor is described which offers improved guidance, navigation and control capabilities and enhanced situational awareness for autonomous air vehicles. Inspired by the motion detection algorithm found in the visual systems offlying insects, the sensor images the surrounding environment and extracts motion parallax which can be used to compute the range to nearby surfaces, targets and obstacles. The sensor is well suited to deployment on an autonomous air vehicle such as atactical unmanned air vehicle, TUAV or autonomous munitions. By providing fast high resolution range information the sensor can be used to provide targeting or obstacle avoidance capability or used to direct sensor resources to regions of interest forhigh resolution, foveal inspection. In addition to improving guidance, navigation, and obstacle avoidance for autonomous air vehicles and smart munitions, the biomimetic range sensor described below can be applied to both manned and unmanned groundvehicles. It can be used to provide 3D vision capability for industrial robots in manufacturing and to monitor sensitive facilities in security applications. In consumer automobiles. The sensor can be used to rapidly measure the range to obstacles andother vehicles, for example, it could warn of insufficient braking distance to a car ahead. In this capacity it would be useful for the Department of Transportation's Intelligent Highway Project. It