Anyone tracking sensor cost trends the way we track actuator cost trends?

[park44]

Here's the relevant bit as far as I understand it: Event cameras (which report per-pixel brightness changes rather than full frames) are still more of a research curiosity than a production sensor for humanoids, mainly because the software ecosystem and processing pipelines around them are far less mature than for standard frame-based cameras.

[sven.wilson4]

Follow-up question though - Latency between a perceived event (like a slip) and a corrective control response matters enormously for balance - even 50-100ms of extra perception latency can be the difference between a smooth recovery and a fall, which is part of why a lot of balance-critical sensing is proprioceptive rather than vision-based.

[thomasmitchell]

This raises a question for me - Proprioception (the robot's sense of its own joint angles, velocities, and forces) tends to get less attention than flashy vision systems, even though a lot of balance and manipulation failures trace back to proprioceptive noise or miscalibration rather than a vision problem.

[nschmidt]

Slight correction, though the overall point stands: Multi-camera calibration drifts over time from thermal expansion, vibration, and mechanical wear, which is why production systems typically run periodic recalibration routines rather than assuming a one-time factory calibration holds forever. Makes me wonder how this looks in another five years.

[priya85]

@nschmidt This raises a question for me - Force/torque sensors near the ankle give a direct read on ground reaction forces, which is valuable for balance control, but they add cost, a failure point, and routing complexity right at a joint that already takes the most mechanical abuse.