Can we stabilize an inverted pendulum with feedback from a time-of-flight camera?
2026-06-08 • Robotics
Robotics
AI summaryⓘ
The authors tested a cheap and low-resolution time-of-flight camera, which measures how far things are, to see if it can help control a balancing task. Even though these cameras are usually thought to be too blurry and noisy for precise control, they found the camera worked well enough to keep an inverted pendulum balanced on a moving cart. This task is a classic example used to test quick and unstable movement controls. Their results show that affordable and simple depth cameras can be used for precise robotics control.
time-of-flight cameradepth sensinginverted pendulumfeedback controlroboticsspatial resolutiondepth noiseunstable dynamics
Authors
Anthony Czubarow, Antonio Terpin, Raffaello D'Andrea
Abstract
Time-of-flight cameras are popular in robotics for providing direct depth information while being compact, inexpensive, and robust to lighting conditions, but their low spatial resolution and depth noise are widely believed to preclude precise feedback control. In this paper, we show that an inexpensive, low-resolution time-of-flight camera provides sufficient feedback to reliably and precisely balance an inverted pendulum on a cart--a canonical benchmark for fast, unstable dynamics.