Helping Machines to See Like Humans

While robotic vision has come a long way in the last decade, in part enabled by higher resolution cameras and new 3D vision technologies, they still are far less efficient than humans in perceiving their environment. Coherent 4D vision technologies are now becoming available promising relieve by measuring much more than just intensity information from returning photons. They can capture tiny frequency shifts induced by object movements and provide information about the material and surfaces sensed via polarization changes. While not entirely new, extensive usage of this approach has been prevented due to the cost and number of components needed. Leveraging the power of silicon integration and a long heritage of bringing silicon photonics products to market, the team of SiLC Technologies is productizing a cost-effective coherent vision sensor for the first time.