Arducam Stereo Camera Package for ROS on Jetson Released

How to use this Arducam Stereo Camera Package for ROS?

In the video:

In the documentations:

Why are we releasing this ROS package?

What is ROS?

The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a set of software libraries and tools that help you build robot applications. From drivers to state-of-the-art algorithms, and with powerful developer tools, ROS has what you need for your next robotics project. And it’s all open source.

ROS used on Raspberry Pi and Jetson Platforms

ROS + Raspberry Pi is such a powerful combination to create smart robots, with a somehow low cost, and very small electronic board embedded in the robot.The Jetson Nano is designed for autonomous machines, it is a tiny, low power and affordable platform with a high level of computing power allowing to perform real time computer vision and mobile-level deep learning operations on the edge.

Arducam Stereo Camera Solution and ROS

The solution to the stereo camera – Arducam Camarray

Camarray is the 2nd generation of Arducam multi-camera solution which aggregates multiple camera inputs into a side-by-side style image output.The Camarray solution allows you to connect up to 4 MIPI cameras over a single MIPI CSI-2 interface, using I2C broadcasting and oscillator sharing, the output image is fully synchronized.

What are the Arducam Camarray products that can be used with this package?

The Camarray solution comes with 3 different styles: the stereo camera module, the stereo camera HAT and the Quad camera HAT.

1. Stereo Camera Module

The stereo camera module is designed for binocular applications like robots, depth sensing. It has a fixed baseline between two cameras, and a standard 15pins CSI-2 FPC cable connection to the backend processor. Camera driver and tutorial documents are available for popular embedded systems like Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano.

2. Stereo Camera HAT

The stereo camera HAT is an upgrade version from its ancestor, that merge two camera inputs and output the same resolution image to cheat the backend processor as if there is only one camera connected. Now it supports the new 12MP HQ camera IMX477, and keeps the same FOV as the input image by changing the output image display ratio.

3. Quad Camera HAT

The quad camera HAT is designed for more advanced usecase which requires more cameras and synchronization. Incorporating with different color filters, the user can create multi spectrum images more easily.

What can you do with Arducam Stereo Camera and ROS?

ROS visual SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) and avoidance is a typical usecase for the stereo camera. It can be used to know where the robot is and which direction it heads to. And camarray is an ideal solution for such an application. Arducam has both stereo camera hardware, device driver, and tutorial document for ROS on the Jetson platform, accelerating the stereo camera integration into your current robotic system.