whatro.bot

Cameras

Imaging sensors for robots — colour, depth, stereo, thermal and event cameras — that give a robot something to recognise objects, people and surfaces with.

  • depth camera
  • stereo camera
  • RGB-D camera
  • machine vision camera
  • event camera

What it is

A robot camera is an imaging sensor that outputs pictures, depth maps or both, usually over USB or Ethernet to a computer that does the interpreting. Depth cameras add distance per pixel by comparing two lenses (stereo, as on the RealSense D455 and Stereolabs ZED 2i), projecting a pattern or timing light pulses. Cameras are cheap and rich in information, but they depend on lighting, need calibration and push the hard work onto the robot's compute.

You will see them called depth, stereo, RGB-D, machine vision or event cameras. In this taxonomy a camera sits under Sensor, beside lidar and force-torque sensors. The rule is that it produces images or depth maps; the modality attribute records which kind.

Where they are used

  • Robot arms — a wrist or overhead depth camera locates parts for picking.
  • Mobile robots and quadrupeds — forward depth cameras catch what lidar misses, such as glass and low steps.
  • Humanoids — head cameras provide the colour imagery learned policies are trained on.
  • Outdoor robots — sealed stereo cameras survive rain and dust; thermal cameras find people and hot spots.
  • High-speed research — event cameras report per-pixel brightness changes with microsecond timing.

What to compare

Attribute Why it matters In this catalogue
modality RGB for recognition, depth or stereo for geometry, thermal for heat, event for speed rgb (3), depth (3), stereo (3)
range Short baselines for tabletop work; wider baselines reach across a room 20 m (all 2)
interface USB 3 is simplest; Ethernet or PoE runs longer cables on mobile robots usb (2)
sdk ROS 2 drivers, calibration, and whether depth is computed on the camera or your GPU python (2), cpp (2), ros1 (2), ros2 (2)
ip_rating Lab cameras are unsealed; outdoors needs IP66 or better 1 entry
mass Wrist-mounted cameras eat into arm payload 0.097 kg (Orbbec Gemini 335) – 0.23 kg (Stereolabs ZED 2i)

Price picture (observed 2026-10-28)

  • Professional / industrial: USD 264 (Orbbec Gemini 335) to USD 499 (Stereolabs ZED 2i).
  • Priced only in other currencies: RealSense D455 (PHP).

Prices are the latest observation per product, in the seller's currency; see each record's offers for history and VAT notes.

In the catalogue

Professional / industrial: Orbbec Gemini 335 · RealSense D455 · Stereolabs ZED 2i

Edge cases

  • Camera with onboard AI: still a camera.
  • Time-of-flight depth camera: a depth image from a flash of light, so a camera; a scanning laser is a lidar.
  • Vision-based tactile sensor (GelSight Mini): a camera inside, but it measures contact, so tactile.
  • Camera with a built-in IMU (D455, ZED 2i): still a camera; the IMU is a feature.

Related

Sensor · Lidar · Force-torque sensor · Tactile sensor · Inertial / encoder · Range / positioning sensor · Compute

Rule of membership

Produces images or depth maps.

Category cp-3-1 in the whatrobot taxonomy.