Akustische Holographie - ein Hilfsmittel zur Bestimmung der raeumlichen position von Objekten in der Robotik

The method of Acoustical Holography, as well established for nondestructive evaluation and underwater sonar technology, has been adopted for use in robotics. Our implementation of Pulsed Acoustical Holography for fast object recognition generates high resolution range images of the sensor environment. It provides information in both lateral and axial direction and employs a combination of broadband ultrasonic transducers and a specially designed efficient signal processing technique. These make it possible to discriminate between objects spaced less than 3 mm apart in axial direction. The principles of Monofrequency and Pulsed Holography as well as the experimental setup that was developed to implement the procedure are described. Several test scenes are presented, showing the high reconstruction precision and resolution of the pulsed method. The promise of this technique for object recognition and possible future research are briefly explored.