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Re: Best low-cost depth cameras for a hobbyist humanoid project?

Posted: Tue May 13, 2025 9:20 pm
by deborahperez
That's the official framing, at least - reality tends to lag a bit. 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. 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.

Re: Best low-cost depth cameras for a hobbyist humanoid project?

Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 8:56 pm
by diego.moore6
@deborahperez Side note that might be relevant: Sensor fusion mostly earns its keep by covering for each individual sensor's weaknesses - vision struggles with occlusion and lighting, IMUs drift, force/torque sensors are noisy at low loads - fusing them gives a more robust estimate than any one source alone, independent of raw compute. Unitree's Dex3-1 dexterous hand packs around 33 pressure/tactile sensors per hand across the fingers and palm, capable of sensing pressure roughly in the 10g-2500g range - a useful reference point for what 'production tactile sensing' looks like right now.

Re: Best low-cost depth cameras for a hobbyist humanoid project?

Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 4:43 pm
by servoken70
@diego.moore6 To answer this directly: Depth sensing range and reliability both degrade outdoors in direct sunlight for most structured-light and active stereo cameras, since the ambient IR washes out the projected pattern - it's a real limitation for humanoids intended for anything beyond indoor, controlled environments.

Re: Best low-cost depth cameras for a hobbyist humanoid project?

Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 11:14 pm
by park44
@servoken70 +1 to this. Worth adding: Vibration is one of the most underrated sources of noisy IMU and tactile readings - mounting matters as much as sensor quality, and a poorly isolated mount can add more noise than the sensor's own datasheet specs would suggest.

Re: Best low-cost depth cameras for a hobbyist humanoid project?

Posted: Tue May 27, 2025 6:59 pm
by nicole57
@park44 One nitpick - Tactile skin arrays have improved a lot, but 'good enough to matter' really depends on the task - coarse contact detection across a large area is fairly mature, while fine, high-resolution force distribution sensing (like a human fingertip) is still the harder problem. Reminds me a bit of the early drone hobbyist scene, honestly.

Re: Best low-cost depth cameras for a hobbyist humanoid project?

Posted: Sat May 31, 2025 3:54 pm
by kwilliams
One nitpick - Tactile skin arrays have improved a lot, but 'good enough to matter' really depends on the task - coarse contact detection across a large area is fairly mature, while fine, high-resolution force distribution sensing (like a human fingertip) is still the harder problem. Depth sensing range and reliability both degrade outdoors in direct sunlight for most structured-light and active stereo cameras, since the ambient IR washes out the projected pattern - it's a real limitation for humanoids intended for anything beyond indoor, controlled environments.