At 2018 Sensors Expo in San Jose, CA, Jacob Hicks, an Applications Development Manager from Omron Electronic Components, discusses including sensors in the Omron LD autonomous robot. The robot is linked to sensor technologies from Omron including cross-referenced Raspberry Pi based cameras to provide locations and status information, similar to what might be required in a factory automation environment to deliver increased safety. With this approach, the robot could provide a first responder assessment. If a person fell down, the robot would go to the person and inquire if they were OK. If the answer was no, the next step could be notifying factory staff or calling for a human first responder.

Multiple camera sensing is just one example of sensing from Omron Electronic Components. Other sensors that could be used in a robot or industrial application include pressure sensors, vibration/tilt sensors, thermal sensors, IoT sensors, optical sensors human imaging sensing technology and even flow sensors. IoT sensors and human imaging sensing are particularly interesting. Using a Bluetooth low energy communication interface, information from temperature, humidity, light, ultraviolet index (UVI), barometric pressure and noise can be transmitted with the IoT sensors.

Omron’s human imaging sensing technology or Human Vision Components (HVC) incorporate ten different image sensing functions including facial recognition to identify the condition of observed individuals. The current HVC-P2 has a maximum recognition speed 10 times faster than the previously introduce version. The sensors are offered with long distance (50-degree) and wide-angle (90-degree) classifications.

For more information about Omron Electronic Components sensors, click here.