At the product launch event on October 26, Ecovacs released a new garden lawn mower robot “GOAT G1”.
It is reported that GOAT G1 is mainly based on machine vision solutions. A panoramic camera is installed on the head of the robot, combined with TrueMapping quadruple fusion positioning system and UWB ultra-bandwidth wireless carrier communication to realize path planning and positioning. When navigating, the panoramic camera acts as the “eye” of the GOAT G1, which can quickly perceive and stabilize imaging, and provide effective data for the robot’s precise navigation and obstacle avoidance.
Leifeng.com learned that this panoramic camera is provided by “Huanjun Technology”.
“Huanjun Technology” was established in 2019. The founding team came from the School of Optoelectronics of Zhejiang University, aiming to integrate various imaging needs through one lens . In 2021, Huanjun Technology received an angel round of financing from ByteDance.
Different from the central axis imaging of mainstream lenses, “Huanjun Technology” uses panoramic ring-belt optical technology for side-axis imaging. This optical design allows a single lens to achieve a field of view that required multiple lenses to cover in the past. The edge distortion problem of a single lens has been solved, and the imaging stability has also been greatly improved.
Recently, “Huanjun Technology” CEO Charles accepted an interview with the media and introduced the current situation and development trend of optical lenses as well as “Huanjun Technology”‘s panoramic ring lens. The following is the interview transcript:
Q: Can you introduce the company team first?
Charles: “Huanjun Technology” is an optical technology company and a start-up company. Our team members are basically from the School of Optoelectronics, Zhejiang University. We hope to use optical technology to integrate multiple imaging needs with one lens, so as to achieve a full field of view and no distortion.
Q: Why use one lens to integrate multiple imaging needs?
Charles: I think there are two major trends in consumer electronics imaging optics. The first is the inner roll of the lens, that is, the number of lenses in the lens is continuously reduced, and finally only one is left; the second is to replace multiple lenses with one lens to integrate the imaging function. The former is represented by Metalens, and we are going the second way.
Q: What is the difference between the lens on the GOAT G1 and the lenses on the market?
Charles: At present, the mainstream lens in the market adopts central axis imaging, while Huanjun Technology adopts panoramic ring belt optical technology for side axis imaging. Compared with other conventional cameras, this unique optical design enables a single lens to achieve a field of view that required multiple lenses in the past, and solves the edge distortion problem of a single lens in the line.
Q: It seems that the fisheye lens can also achieve panoramic views. Why is the design of the fisheye lens not adopted?
Charles: Fisheye lens is a traditional large field of view imaging technology. While its field of view is enlarged, it has distinct negative distortion, which limits the resolution of fisheye lens at the edge of the field of view, which makes it difficult to detect peripheral vision. Limited in applications with high imaging requirements.
At the same time, because the fisheye lens needs to bend the light with a large field of view to the optical axis gradually, large off-axis aberration will be introduced, and the image edge compression and uncontrollable, low relative illumination and poor imaging quality will inevitably occur. .
Q: Fisheye lenses can improve imaging by adding de-distortion algorithms. Can’t they achieve similar results?
Charles: Although a de-distortion algorithm can be added to the fisheye lens in the later stage to improve the imaging, such imaging data has low confidence and is difficult to reflect the real situation of the surrounding environment, so it is rarely used as the main sensor, but is used for fun shooting or Both sides of the car look around are prompted to use.
Our solution is to solve the distortion problem directly in the optical part, and there is no transfer to the later algorithm to improve, so the confidence is higher.
Q: Is there any other method that can replace the imaging method of the panoramic lens?
Charles: Yes, like stitching cameras.
The splicing camera uses the spatial distribution of multiple lenses to make each sub-field of view compensate each other, and splices through the image matching clues provided by the overlap of a certain field of view, so as to achieve a large field of view imaging effect, and the image resolution is also high.
However, the problems of splicing cameras are that the use of multiple lenses at the same time, the overall structure is too cumbersome, the cost is high, the distortion and real-time performance at the joints are poor, and the computing power and energy consumption support are required; and the shutter synchronization and calibration between cameras , The assembly error requirements are more stringent.
All these limit the application of stitching cameras in lightweight and dynamic environments.
Q: There are also lidars on the market. Compared with panoramic lenses, what is the difference between the two?
Charles: Different scenarios require different sensors.
Lidar is more to solve the problems in “rain, fog, and pollution” scenes. At this time, the camera is also easy to fail, but in normal scenes, the camera is fully capable of working, and the cost of the two is also huge.
The lidar obtains 360-degree 3D shape information without image semantic information, and the lens can be synchronously integrated with the lidar, so that in a 360-degree scene, both the 3D shape and the image semantics are more accurate.
Q: Many lidars don’t seem to need 360 degrees these days?
Charles: Yes, how much does it need, how much my vision releases, our upper limit is consistent and accurate.
Q: There seems to be no such lens on the market.
Charles: Yes, many people in the optical industry have never seen this lens, because almost all optical designs focus on central axis imaging, that is, the camera is facing the object to image, and few people do things the opposite way.
Q: What scenarios is this lens suitable for?
Charles: According to the imaging characteristics, it can be applied in scenarios that require a large field of view and high precision, such as automotive ADAS, smart cockpit, lidar vision fusion, ARVR and other fields.
Charles believes that emerging smart application terminals are constantly emerging, and they also put forward higher requirements for visual sensors. The advantages of lenses with higher efficiency and wider viewing angles are becoming more and more obvious.
The panoramic lens of “Huanjun Technology” not only avoids the negative distortion problem of fisheye lens, but also solves the difficulties of cumbersome structure and high computing power and energy consumption of splicing cameras with one lens, providing a new solution for the industry. Program. Leifeng Network Leifeng Network
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