TOF Sensor on Starling 2 Sample Data, Application, & Specs

newdroneflyer

Hello, I have some more questions about the TOF Sensor used on the Starling 2:

Can you provide some sample point cloud data at various settings of the TOF sensor? Something like an orbital around a cardboard box or small object would be great if you have it.

Sample data is missing on the docs website: https://docs.modalai.com/M0178/#indoor

What are the definitions of the ranges for long, mid, short, and ultra short? Is the sampling rate of points per second the same between the ranges? Can you please provide definitions and specs for the various settings.
Do you have any accuracy studies available for performance loss of detecting distances outside of the specified range? For example if operating within the "long" mode (assumed optimized for objects > 1 meter away), but a nearby object enters the scene that's only 20 centimeters away - does the TOF call that true 20 centimeter distance as 17cm, 25cm, or NULL?

Alex Kushleyev

The different operating TOF modes (for the TOF V2 sensor on Starling 2) are described here in terms of power usage and fps : https://docs.modalai.com/M0178/#irs2975-operating-modes . We do not have exact information, but the different modes emit different amount of IR power and using different modulation schemes. The operating modes are tuned for the different ranges as stated (ultra short, short, mid long), which means depending on your application, you can choose one or the other.

The number of sampling points per frame is the same for each mode, but FPS can be chosen based on what you need and it has to be within the provided specs (short range allows you to use higher fps).

We have not done specific studies to measure the performance of the sensor to the detail that you are asking about.

I can collect some data for you if you need. What format? There are also some tuning parameters, that can be tuned (can be found here with some comments : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/services/voxl-camera-server/-/blob/master/src/tof_interface.cpp?ref_type=heads#L1033) . You would probably need to experiment yourself if you wanted to get the best performance out of the sensor.

Alex