PMD-Modeling, -Simulation, -Evaluation & Algorithmics

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Andreas Kolb
• Subject Area: Measurement Systems ; Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 251300457

Range sensing Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras have been actively developed for some 15 years now. The Photonic Mixing Devices (PMD) is one of the first approaches that was introduced and prototypically realized by Prof. Dr. Rudolf Schwarte from the University of Siegen. The PMD concept was the nucleus for the foundation of the pmd technologies gmbh, which is one of the world leading ToF camera producers, with a staff of about 65 employees.The central idea of the requested knowledge transfer project is the integrated investigation and conceptual integration of the topics sensor modeling, simulation, evaluation and algorithmics of ToF cameras based on the respective development status at the chair for Computer Graphics and the industrial partner pmd technologies gmbh. This approach will promote the advancement of relevant research results, presented in the last decade, towards integration into commercial products for real-world applications. Furthermore, we will develop new solution to perturbing effects of ToF camera systems, which have been little investigated until now.In this project we will, on the basis of prior and current DFG funded research projects, investigate very current and practical questions, which are, at the same time, of strong scientific interest. This involves an integrated investigation of sensor modeling, simulation and evaluation, which allows for quantitative assessment of future sensors and algorithms, from the chip level up to the correction of specific measurement errors at driver level. Furthermore, in the algorithmic context, we will research relevant questions such as motion artefacts and multi-path problems. Finding robust and efficient solutions to resolve these problems will strongly improve the data quality, and thus open up new application domains for ToF cameras.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants (Transfer Project)
• Participating Institution: pmdtechnologies gmbh