Tech Brief:
Choosing the Right Sensors for Your Robotics Application
Robots do not “see” the world in a single way. They combine multiple sensing modalities to perceive distance, motion, orientation and environment dynamics. Selecting the right sensors depends on what the robot needs to perceive, at what range, and with which level of reliability.
What Does Your Robot Need to Perceive?
Depth and distance
- ToF sensors / ToF cameras provide direct depth information at short to medium range.
- LiDAR excels at long-range, high-accuracy depth mapping.
- Ultrasound offers low-cost proximity sensing with limited resolution.
Visual context and classification
- Cameras enable object recognition, scene understanding and visual navigation, but require significant processing and good lighting conditions.
Motion and orientation
- IMUs measure acceleration and rotation, forming the basis for dead reckoning and motion stabilisation.
Environmental robustness
- Radar performs well in dust, fog, rain or poor lighting where optical sensors degrade.
No single sensor covers all requirements. Robust robots rely on sensor fusion, combining complementary strengths to compensate for individual weaknesses.
Practical Actions Engineers Can Take Today
- Define what the robot must detect, classify or avoid
- Map sensing range, accuracy and update rate requirements
- Combine complementary sensors rather than overloading one
- Validate behaviour under real environmental conditions
- Plan compute and bandwidth early for sensor data processing
Featured Solutions
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