Increasing the accuracy of Time-of-Flight cameras for machine vision applications

Range imaging based on the Time-of-Flight (ToF) principle evolved largely in recent years. Especially, the lateral resolution, the ability to operate outdoors with sunlight and the sensitivity have been improved. Nevertheless, the acceptance of depth cameras for machine vision in the industry environment is still rather limited. The major shortcoming of ToF depth cameras compared to laser range scanners is their measuring accuracy, which is not sufficient for several applications. In this paper, we firstly introduce several state of the art depth cameras briefly and demonstrate their capabilities. Afterwards, we explore possibilities to increase the radial resolution and the accuracy of ToF depth cameras based on the Photonic Mixer Device (PMD). In general, the usage of higher modulation frequencies promises higher depth resolution but yields on the other hand higher noise levels. Moreover, the accuracy is limited by systematic errors and the measurement are affected by random noise and we show how to minimize and compensate them in industry environments.