Highly functional and versatile camera platform for a multipurpose robotic vehicle

A highly functional and versatile camera platform for a multi-purpose robotic vehicle utilizing a novel modular approach is presented. The platform uses only three CCD camera, four computer-controlled rotation stages and three modular optical imaging systems to provide both a stereo vision mode at any desired viewing angle and a panoramic vision mode with a 180° nonoverlapping field-of-view. The panoramic view from the imaging system of each module is collected by one of three mirrors and transmitted collectively towards a corrresponding CCD camera. Stereo vision mode is accessed by aligning any two of the three modules in parallel using their respective rotation stages. When the entire assembly is rotated by another rotation stsge, any desired viewing angle is obtained.