| The goal of this research is to investigate the use of traditional and non-traditional imaging sensors in determining the distance from the imaging sensor to a target object. It is essential for a machine vision system to be able to recognize a target object and determine the position of the object. While determining the two dimensional x-y coordinates is fairly easy, the main challenge in determining the position of an object is determining the depth or range (z coordinate) of the object.;One of the applications in which depth information can be helpful is in crystallography. Many drugs used in modern medicine are created via sophisticated drug creation techniques that require crystallography. While many steps in the crystallography process have been automated, one of the biggest challenges is determining the depth of a crystal as it sits in one of the wells of a microtiter plate. In this thesis, a traditional imaging sensor (CCD array) and auto-focusing algorithms, similar to those used in commercially available digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, are used to determine the crystal depth in the well.;The Wyoming Information, Signal Processing, and Robotics Laboratories (WISPR) at the University of Wyoming have on on-going effort to develop sensors based on the Musca domestica's visual system. While there has been a large amount of research done on different applications using this sensor, little research has been conducted on obtaining distance information. In this thesis, range determination using a Musca domestica inspired imaging sensor is investigated. |
