Principles of Computer System Design for Stereo Perception

This paper presents principles for designing a computer system that supports stereo perception for an autonomous, mobile robot. These principles aid the engineer in selecting a CPU and network bus to maintain an acceptable level of robotic capability without needlessly large performance margins, which can result in excessive system power consumption. A series of configuration equations are presented that describe relationships between important system parameters such as CPU clock speed, network communication latency, computer power consumption, robot response distance, robot velocity and stereo camera parameters. Configuration equations are intended to improve the engineer’s ability to make trade-off decisions early in the design process. An application of these principles on an existing autonomous mobile robot, Hyperion, are presented both as an example and to outline future work.