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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.484



    Automation in Construction
    Publisher: Elsevier Science Publisher B. V., Amsterdam.
        Desk Editor: Erik de Vries
    The Editor of the journal is
    Dr. T. Michael Knasel
    10324 Lake Avenue
    Cleveland, OH 441102-1239.
    Fax. [phone].

Don't have addresses for:

    International Journal of Robotics and Automation

    Robotics and Autonomous Systems

    Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing


Useful and relevant trade magazines:

    Usually free, mostly ads or industry news. Many articles written by
    advertisers. Great sources of product information. Our lab at
    CMU receives 40-50 trade magazines and journals and while no
    one reads all of them articles and pointers are passed
    on to people around the lab. This keeps the group abreast of
    new products and developments.

    Sensors
    Helmers Publishing
    174 Concord Street
    PO Box 874
    Peterborough, NH 03458-0874
    [phone]
    Trade magazine devoted to sensing devices. Publishes annual directory.
    Cost: Free to qualified subscribers, $55/yr otherwise

    Machine Design
    Design News
    Motion Control
    GPS World
    RF Design
    Sea Technology
    Laser Focus
    POB
    Broadcast Engineering
    Embedded Systems
    EE Times

Other very useful resources that every laboratory or company should
have are the Thomas Register and the EEM. The Thomas Register is $250
for a complete set and they issue new ones every year - usually isn't
necessary to get new ones every year.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Mobile robot companies:
There are a small number of companies targeting the research community
for the mobile robot market. TRC, RWI, Cybermotion and Denning have
all sold and are selling mobile devices for research and real
applications. A number of Automatic Guided Vehicle companies sell
their machines but their primary applications are factory operations.

Bell and Howell
Mailmobile Company
81 Hartwell Avenue
Lexington, MA 02173-3127
[phone]
  Mailmobiles were developed by Lear-Siegler in the mid-70's for the
  industrial cleaning market. They left this market and
  Bell & Howell, the audio-visual company,  was refocusing on office
  automation products and picked
  up this product from Lear-Siegler. There are three models of
  Mailmobile, the Packmobile, the Sprint and the Trailmobile. About 3000
  systems sold and about 2000 probably in operation. They use a chemical
  trail that floureseces under UV light. Payloads up to a couple of
  hundred kg.  Some systems have been operating for over 15 years.

Cybermotion
5457 Jae Valley Road
Roanoke, VA 24014
[phone]
  John Holland's company. Mobile K2 bases making use of ingenious
  torque-tube synchronous drive system. Security markets and research
  platforms, manipulators for base as well. Map building software too.

Denning Mobile Robotics Inc.
21 Concord Street
Wilmington, MA 01887
[phone]
  Mobile robots - synchronous drive bases for research platforms.
  Building automated camera platforms for newsrooms, working on
  floor cleaning machines with an industrial partner.
  Denning also has a number of products including a position scanner,
  and IR beacons.  A Denning floor scrubber is working in a post
  office in Pittsburgh, Denver and Washington, and at a UPS site.

IS Robotics
4353 Park Terrace Drive
Westlake Village, CA 91361 USA
email:  [e-mail]
phone:  [phone]
  Associated with ISX Robotics of Cambridge.
  T-1: tracked robot approx 50cm x 36cm. $5k
  R-2: Wheeled machine. Gripper with 7.5cm opening, 18cm lift, 1kg
       lift force. $7K
  Ghengis II: Six-legged machine with whisker bump sensors and force
        detection on legs. About $2k.
  Use the ubiquitous MC68HC11E2 microcontrollers. Robots include IR
  and bump sensing for obstacle detection. Pyro sensors and color
  camera with pan-tilt are optional.

mecos Robotics AG
Gutstrasse 38
8400 Winterthur
Switzerland
Telephone: int + (0)52 29 58 28
Telefax: int + (0)52 29 96 53
E-mail: [e-mail]
Contact: S. J. Vestli
  Company formed as a spin off of
  the Institute of Robotics, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute
  of Technology). "mecos Robotics" specialises in modular
  and adaptive robot manipulators and robot vehicles (mobile
  robots). All "mecos Robotics" systems uses the same type
  of controller, a VME based computer. This system comes
  with high level development tools, and for research
  institutions the systems have the advantage of being
  open. The overall goals of all "mecos Robotics" systems
  are flexility and modularity.
    The mobile robot program from "mecos Robotics" follows this
  principle. The physical size and the mechanical configuration
  can be altered. The standard configuration has three wheels
  with air tyres and independant suspension. One wheel is
  used for steering and propulsion (imagine a kids tricycle).
  The overall size is 0.7 m (W) * 1.0 m (L) * 0.5 m (H). The
  price depends on configuration and starts around the 70.000,-
  Swiss Franks mark.

Movit Robots
Available from:
Kelvin Electronics [phone]
Pitsco [phone]
Edmund Scientific (See Robot Parts Section)
 These are small toy-like robots that reflexively respond to
obstacles,  sounds or light depending on the model. They're cute and
show what can be done with a relatively small amount of hardware.

Nomadic Technologies
858 La Para Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
[phone]
fax [phone]
  Mobile base and sensors (IR, Laser ranging, touch, GUI software
  development) $10K range.

Real World Interface (RWI)
New Hampshire
  Small synchronous drive bases, primarily for research purposes. Approx $6K

TRC
15 Great Pasture Road
Danbury, CT 06810
[phone]
  Labmate research platform - $7500, plus additional optional sensors
  etc. Other prodcuts for hospital markets and floor cleaning machines.
  (Helpmate and RoboKent respectively)

Yamazaki Construction Company, Tokyo Japan.
Intelligent Robot Lab
Kaika Building
2-7-1 Sotokanda
Chiyoda-ku 101 Tokyo
Japan
phone:  [phone]
  LR1 robot - small research robot, basically a VME cage on wheels with
  some ultrasonic sensors and a nice constant force suspension. Has
  shown up at IEEE R&A conferences $30K.

Robosoft, Asnieres, France

Odetics,
Anaheim, CA
  Six-legged, (pantograph) Walking machine.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Robot manipulator companies:

Adept Technology
150 Rose Orchard Way
San Jose, CA 95134
[phone]
fax [phone]
  High speed direct-drive and harmonic-drive SCARA style arms. 0.001"
  (.025mm) repeatabiliy. Payloads from 4-25kg Can be used in clean room
  and food applications as well. Adept sells vision systems and
  controllers also.

Antenen Research
PO Box 95
Hamilton, OH 45012
[phone]
[phone]
fax [phone]
  New and used robots for manufacturing, research and training.
  Used at savings of 40% - 70%. Also lots of parts and accessories.

CRS Plus,
POox 163, Station A
830 Harrington Court
Burlington, Ontario
Canada L7R 3Y2
[phone]
fax [phone]
  Sells several manipulators. 5-DOF around $25K, 6DOF around $33K.
  Sell end-effectors as well (electric, vacuum and penumatic)
  Wrist can be bought separately. Controllers use RAPL, a VAL-like
  language. Fairly open architecture. 3Kg payloads +/- 0.05mm
  repeatability.

Motoman [Hobart/Yaskawa]
3160 MacArthur Boulevard
Northbrook, IL 60062-1917
[phone], fax [phone]
  Large industrial manipulators for welding, painting, palletizing,
  dispensing, etc. Can be floor, ceiling or wall mount units. Payloads
  for the 8 robots in the K-series range from 3kg to 100kg and
  repeatability of 0.1 to 0.5 mm over that same range. They are vertical
  jointed-arm type manipulators. (i.e. 4 bar linkage to reduce arm
  intertias). 3 S-series robots are SCARA-type manipulators with
  payloads of 50-60kg and varying workspace sizes

  Yaskawa also has bought the rights to RobotWorld, Vic Schienman's unique
  gantry design robot system. This system allow a number of mobile
  modules in the same workspace to zip around at speeds up 80"/sec (3G
  accel). RAIL and C can be used in a multilevel programming
  environment. 0.002" Accuracy, 0.0005" repeatability. Neat stuff.

Salisbury Robotics, Inc.
20 Pemberton St.
Cambridge, MA 02140
[phone]
  Sell the three-fingered Salisbury hand and force sensing fingertips.
  Contact: Ken Salisbury, email: <[e-mail]>

Sony Corporation of America
Factory Automation Division
542 Route 303
Orangeburg, NY 10962
[phone]
fax [phone]
Several SCARA type manipulators including a double armed manipulator.
This model is used for the assembly of 8mm camcorders!

Zebra Robotics
Jeff Kerr
Palo Alto
  Small manipulators with integral force control

Sarcos Research Corporation
261 East 300 South Suite 150
Salt Lake City, Utah 84111
 Manufacturing is done by:
Animate Systems Inc.
1780 West 2300 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84119
  Spinoff of University of Utah's Center for Engineering Design (CED).
  Teleoperated systems,  manipulators. Audio-animatronic work as well.
  Beautiful force reflecting work and systems. High performance and
  small hydraulic valves and actuators.

Kraft Telerobotics
Kansas

Schilling

Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), Vesteraas, Sweden
ABB Robotics
2487 South Commerce Drive
New Berlin, WI 53151
[phone]
Now own Cinncinatti Milacron robotics group, Graco and Trallfa.

mecos Robotics AG
Gutstrasse 38
8400 Winterthur
Switzerland
tel: int + (0)52 29 58 28
fax: int + (0)52 29 96 53
E-mail: [e-mail]
Contact: E. Nielsen
  A new company formed as a spin off of
  the Institute of Robotics, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute
  of Technology). "mecos Robotics" specialises in modular
  and adaptive robot manipulators and robot vehicles (mobile
  robots). All "mecos Robotics" systems uses the same type
  of controller, a VME based computer. This system comes
  with high level development tools, and for research
  institutions the systems have the advantage of being
  open. The overall goals of all "mecos Robotics" systems
  are flexility and modularity.

  The robot manipulators reflect this principle. The mechanical
  configuration can be changed at will (number and type
  of joints, length of links, etc.). The controller takes
  advantage of this principle. With this principle of modularity
  and flexibilty hybrid force / position controllers
  have been realised on "mecos Robotics" arms. Price depending
  on configuration (50.000,- Swiss Franks and upwards).

_____________________________________________________________________________
Other organizations doing robotics:

Most large aerospace companies have groups working in or looking
into robotics. Martin Marietta (Denver), Rockwell International
(Downey, CA), Boeing (Seattle) to name a few.

Redzone Robotics
2425 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4639
[phone]
  A spin-off of CMU, Redzone has focused
  on hazwaste and nuke manipulator applications but is branching out into
  mobile applications. Primarily protoypes and not multiple unit manufacturing.

Vision Applications
NY, NY
  Small, low cost fovial camera systems. Development stages. Unique
  integrated, super small camera/pan/tilt device. Miniature active
  vision systems, video telephones.

Mechanical Engineering Lab (MEL)
Tsukuba City
  Kazuo Tanie: Robotics and cybernetics

--NASA Centers
Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL)
Pasadena, CA
  Hazardous-environment robots, teloperation, control, space and
  planetary missions.
  Tony Bejczy, Chuck Weisbin, Brian Wilcox, Larry Mathies,
  Henry Stone, David Miller

Ames Research Center (ARC)
Moffett Field, CA
Telepresence and virtual user interfaces, vision (optical and parallel
processing), free-flyers, task planning, agents.
Contact: Butler Hine III <[e-mail]>
    Terry Fong <[e-mail]>

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
MD
  Since the cancellation of the Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS), the Robotics
  Lab has been concentrating on work in the area of automated space craft
  servicing.  The goal is to replace or supplement Extra Vehicular Activity
  (EVA) with teleoperated or semiautonomous robotic systems for external
  vehicle maintenance.

Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
  More of an operations house but lots of shuttle RMS work. Becoming
central site for Artemis (lunar explorer) work.

Kennedy Space Center
Robotics Group
Like JSC, KSC is an operations house with responsibility to keep
shuttles flying and integrate payloads. There is a small but
growing robotics group that is emplacing ground support robotics
applications. Recent work includes filter inspector for launch pad
payload areas, shuttle radiator inspector and a mobile system for
thermal protection system tasks.

Langley Research Center, (LaRC)
VA
  Jack Pennington - vision, inspection, 3-D sensors

Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, TX
Robotics and Automation Department
Some large systems for servicing aircraft (painting, spraying,
deriveting etc)

Oak Ridge National Lab
ORNL/CESAR
PO Box 2008, MS-6364
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6364
[phone]
Contact: Alex L. Bangs <[e-mail]>
   Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR)

   Research in mobile and manipulator robotics, including redundant
   and multiple manipulators, cooperating mobile robots, parallel
   vision systems, sensor fusion, real-time quantitative reasoning
   and behavior based control, and machine learning. Current
   applications include robots for nuclear power stations,
   environmental restoration and waste management, material
   handling, and space exploration.

   Researchers: Alex Bangs, Marty Beckerman, Judd Jones, Reinhold Mann,
     Ed Oblow, Francois Pin, Michael Unseren

______________________________________________________________________________
Graduate Program in Robotics:

Preface - Any good school will undoubtedly offer some robotics courses within
the engineering programs. Departments of Mechanical and Electrical
engineering and Computer Science are all good candidates for coursework
in Robotics. However, a number of schools have established track records and
a focus on robotics and those are listed here.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science both have strong
  robotics efforts. Asada, Slotine, Brooks, Raibert and others
  are known and respected for their work in direct-drive arm, control
  techniques, architectures, running machines etc.

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
  The Robotics Institute is a 150 person organization that offers
  a PhD in Robotics but students from other programs (engineering and
  computer science mostly) do research in the Institute as well. Lots
  of mobile robot work, computer integrated manufacturing, rapid
  prototyping, sensors, vision, navigation, learning and architectures.
  Program is taking four qualifiers and a program of research leading to
  a thesis and the degree.
  Facilities include about 10 mobile systems with more under design and
  construction. Many manipulator systems and lots of compute
  cycles/person.
  The Insitute will be starting an MS program as well.
    Hans Moravec - Mobile Robots Lab
    Takeo Kanade - Vision and Autonomous Systems Center
    Red Whittaker - Field Robotics Center
    Steve Shafer - Calibrated Imaging Laboratory
    Pradeep Khosla - Advanced Manipulator Laboartory
    Matt Mason - Manipulation Laboratory
    Tom Mitchell - Learning Robots Lab
    Mel Seigel - Sensors Laboratory (non vision)
    and many others.....
  Graduate program contact:
  Graduate Admissions Coordinator
  The Robotics Institute
  Carnegie Mellon University
  Pittsburgh, PA 15213

University of Pennsylvania.
  UPenn offers Masters and PhD programs in Robotics and Robotics related
  fields of study. These programs are offered through the Departments of
  Computer and Information Science, Systems Engineering, and Mechanical
  Engineering and Applied Mechanics. The bulk of the robotics research
  is conducted in the inter-disciplinary General Robotics and Active
  Sensory Perception (GRASP) laboratory. Active areas of research are
  Telerobotics, Multiple Arm Control, Robotic Vision, Leanring Control,
  Multi-agent Robotics and Mechanical Design. Leding Faculty members
  are Drs. R. Bajcsy and R.P. Paul.

University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
  Artificial Intelligence Lab (Elec. Eng. and CS) relevant to robotics
  includes machine vision, systems and control, multiple cooperating
  agents (arms and mobile), and application of SOAR to robots (arms and
  mobile). (in conjunction with SOAR groups at CMU and elsewhere)

North Carolina State Univerisity
Raleigh, NC
  Professor Ren Luo
  [phone]

Stanford University
  Palo Alto, CA
  Mechanical Engineering:
    Bernard Roth (kinematics of manipulators)
    Mark Cutkosky: destrous manipulation and concurrent manufacturing
    Larry Liefer (rehabilitation, user interfaces)
  CS Department:
    Nils Nilsson
    Mike Genesereth
    Jean-Claude Latombe (path planning and geometric reasoning)
    Leo Guibas (geometric reasoning)
    Tom Binford (vision)
    Yoav Shoham (agents)
    Oussama Khatib
  Aerospace Robotics Laboratory:
    Bob Cannon (teleoperation, free flyers, space robotics,
    flexible manipulators)

University of Southern California (USC)
  Long history of robotics with interested faculty in CS, EE, ME, and ISE.
  People include:
    George Bekey - founder of IEEE R&A
    Michael Arbib - head Brain Simulation Laboratory
    Ram Nevatia - Computer Vision Laboratory
    Ari Requicha - Programmable Automation Laboratory
  About twenty other faculty member associated with the Institute for
  Robotics and Intelligent Systems and many others associated with
  USC's Information Sciences Institute (ISI).
  Brochure can be obtained from:
    Ken Goldberg, Asst Professor
    IRIS, Dept of Computer Science
    Powell Hall Room 204
    University of Southern California
    Los Angeles, CA 90089-0273
    Internet: [e-mail]

University of Maryland
  Space Systems Laboratory. Large Neutral Bouyancy Tank,
  teleoperations research,
    Dave Akin - director
  Dave has flown shuttle experiments.

New York University (NYU)
  Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.


Yale University - Vision and Robotics Group
  There is a broad spectrum of research activities in vision and robotics at
  Yale.  The members of this group include faculty from Computer Science,
  Electrical Engineering, Psychology, Neuroscience, and the Yale Medical
  School. Active areas of research include machine vision, human and computer
  object recognition, geometric reasoning, mobile robotics, sensor-based
  manipulation, control of highly dynamic nonlinear systems, planning, and
  learning.  There is also a wide spectrum of interdisciplinary work
  integrating robotics and machine vision.
Faculty:
  James S. Duncan: Geometric/physical models for analysing biomedical images.
  Gregory D. Hager: Sensor-based/task-directed decision-making and planning.
  David J. Kriegman: Model-based object recognition, mobile robot navigation.
  Drew McDermott: Planning and scheduling reactive behavior, knowledge
    representation, cognitive mapping.
  Eric Mjolsness: Neural network approaches to vision and visual memory.
  Dan Koditschek: Application of dynamical systems theory to machine dexterity.
  Pat Sharpe: Computational models of hippocampal spatial learning.
  Michael J. Tarr: Behavioral and computational approaches to visual cognition.
  Kenneth Yip: Automated reasoning about complex dynamical systems.

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
  Pasadena, CA
    Joel Burdick - serpentine manipulation, control

Rennsalear Polytechnic Institute (RPI)-?
  Center for Intelligent Robotic Systems for Space Exploration (CIRSSE)
    George Saridis
    Arthur Sanderson
    Jon Wenn
  Appro. 20 PhD and 30 MS students working in the center. Path
  planning and multi-arm control are current focus.

University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
Steve Jacobsen
Center for Engineering Design
3176 MEB
Hands, manipulators, biomedical applications, teleoperation
Micro electro-mechanical systems design.

Purdue
 Avi Kak: Vision and mobile robots
 Antti Koivo: Manipulation
 Mirek Skibiniewski: Construction Robotics

University of Kentucky
Center for Robotics and Manufacturing Systems
(founded 1990)

University of Alberta
Center for Machine Intelligence and Robotics

University of Wisconsin
Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR)

University of Kansas
Space Technology Center (Telerobotics)

University of Paris
  INRIA (Nice) just started a Phd program in Robotics.

University of California at Berkeley
Faculty in Robotics at UC Berkeley
Dept. of EE&CS:
Prof. J. Canny: motion planning
Prof. R. Fearing: tactile sensing, dextrous manipulation
Prof. J. Malik: computer vision
Prof. S. Sastry: multi-fingered hands, control

Dept. of Optometry/EE&CS:
Prof. L. Stark: telerobotics

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering:
Prof. R. Horowitz: control of robotic manipulators
Prof. H. Kazerooni: man-robotic systems
Prof. M. Tomizuka: control of robotic manipulators
Richard Muller - micro mechanisms

Harvard
    Roger Brockett

Oxford
    Oxford has a large robotics group. Mobile robots, path planning etc.
    Mike Brady director

Salford University, UK
Advanced Robotics Research Centre
  Ultrasonic wrist sensor for collision avoidance
  Controller design
  Stereo Vision
Dr Francis Nagy
  Speech Control of a Puma-560
  Control of an 'Inverted Pendulum'
  Miniature tactile sensors

Reading University, UK
  Prof Kevin Warwick
  Using Neural Nets in Robotics
  Novel control algorithms

Bristol Polytechnic, UK
 Mr Khodlebandelhoo
  Bi arm research
  Path planning for redundant robots
  Wall climbing robots

Hull University, UK
  Prof Alan Pugh
  Garment Manufacturing
  Arm/controller design

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
  The Institute of Robotics
  Postgrad diploma in Mechatronics
The Institute of Robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH) constitutes about 40 members of staff (including
Ph.D. students). The main research theme is Intelligent
Interactive Mechines. That is to say developing intelligent
robots that in cooperation with man solves difficult tasks.
The institute takes its students from the departments of
Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer
Science. Robotics lectures and project work is offered to
undergraduate students. In addition there is the "Nachdiplom"
in mechatronics (somewhere near a M.Sc.) where robotics is
a central theme. For further details on the "Nachdiplom" see
below. Finally there are about 30 Ph.D. students curently
registered working on a variety of themes and projects.
Institute facilities include: several different robot arms
including the in house developed modular robot arm (MODRO),
mobile vehicles including the in house developed modular
mobile robot, walking machines, supercomputing facilities,
dedicated vision and signal processing hardware, etc.

The head of the group is Professor G. Schweitzer.
Address:
  Institute of Robotics
  ETH-Center, LEO,
  8092 Zurich
  Switzerland
  telephone: [phone] (secretary)
  telefax: (01) 252 02 76.

The "Nachdiplom" in mechatronics runs over two semesters plus
three months project/thesis work. The lectures covers:
robotics, mobile robotics, micro robots, computer based
kinematics and dynamics of multibody systems, control
theory, magnetic bearings, real time software techniques,
information processing with neural networks, computer
vision, and artificial intelligence. The fees are 2400,-
Swiss Franks, founding is available. Contact:
  H.-K. Scherrer
  Mechatronics postgraduate course
  ETH-Centre, LEO B3
  8092 Zurich
  Switzerland
  email: [e-mail]

Cornell
  Ithaca, NY
  Mechanical Engineering
    Sam Landsberger
    Jeff Koechling
    Bruce Donald

--------------
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From: [e-mail] (Kevin Dowling)
Subject: comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) part 2/2
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    and their answers about robotics. It should be read by anyone
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Archive-name: robotics-faq/part2
Last-modified: 10/26/92


This is part 2 of 2 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list.
This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to robotics.

Part 2
    Sensors
    Suppliers and sources for Parts
    Hero Robots
    Puma Manipulators
    Simulators
    Real-Time Operating Systems
    Books

    Acknowledgements

Changes, additions, comments, suggestions and questions to:
    [e-mail]
aka:     Kevin Dowling
         Robotics Institute
    Carnegie Mellon University
    Pittsburgh, PA 15213

___________________________________________________________________________
Sensors:
    This list covers only the most frequently requested types of
robot sensors. These include point-range sensors, cameras, and
acoustic devices. See Sensors magazine directory for a large and
comprehensive list.

Accelerometers:
    These are devices for measuring the rate of change in velocity
and can provide estimations of distance or be used to detect high
forces.
Lucas NovaSensor
1055 Mission Court
Fremont, CA 94539
[phone]
Lucas makes a 1"x1"x0.5" accelerometer for about $200. Good noise
immunity but fragile.

Cameras:
    There are a large number of cameras on the market and many
consumer products such as the smaller camcorders are inexpensive and
suitable for imaging applications. I'll try to list some different and
unusual ones here.
    Sony has a beautiful small color CCD, the XC-999/999P.
It is the size of a microphone. 768Hx493V. 999 is NTSC and the 999P
is the PAL format.

CIDTech has some really nice ones with CID instead of CCD, especialy
good for machine vision, no blooming, fast image grabbing.

Gyros:
    Used for measuring orientation.

KVH Industries
110 Enterprise Center
Middletown, RI 02840
[phone]
Nice units that provide heading data. About $1K w/ RS232 adapter.

Laser rangefinders:
    There are a variety of laser rangefinding devices that have
been built. The 3D devices are still large, power hungry and heavy but
give very nice images suitable for fast map building and navigtion
work. Expect to pay over $80K for these time of flight devices. Most
AM Lidars measure phase shift between outgoing and reflected beams.
A mirror system rasters the beam forming a video-camera-like image.
Some devices supply the reflectance image as well as range which
is nice for corresponding the two. Comprehensive references include:

P. Besl, ``Active, Optical Range Imaging Sensors'', Machine Vision and
Applications, v. 1, p. 127-152, 1988.

A longer version of Besl's paper appears in ``Advances in Machine Vision:
Architectures and Applications'', J. Sanz (ed.), Springer-Verlag, 1988.

Other good surveys are Ray Jarvis' article in IEEE TPAMI v5n2
and Nitzan's article in PAMI v10n2.

A number of laboratory works have also demonstrated FM or chirp systems
which can be highly accurate (e.g. elevation maps of coins are one
demonstration of these) but these are very specialized and I don`t
know of commercial devices currently.

  ERIM (Environmental Research Institute of Michigan)
    ERIM has built a number of custom AM laser rangefinders
including those used in the ALV (Autonomous Land Vehicle) program. CMU and
Martin Marietta have both used this systems in extensive work.
Basic system was a 128x64 2fps 20m (ambiguity interval) system.