Hokuyo

Laser scanners with a long tradition

Hokuyo Automatic Co., Ltd. is a Japanese company making optical sensors and data-transmission devices. Its website lists four categories: scanning rangefinders, photoelectric switches, sensors for the iron and steel industry and optical data transmission. It holds ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certificates and has contact offices in Japan, South Korea, the USA, China and the Netherlands. On its home page it highlights the two-dimensional LiDAR UST-10LXB-H02 and the UAM-05LECA-T301 model. The company builds no robots.

Parameters of a well-known model

We have a specific Hokuyo datasheet only from outside retailers, not from our own documents. According to the data for the UST-10LX: weight 130 g, detection range 0.06 to 10 m for a white surface and up to 4 m at 10 percent reflectivity, 270° scan angle, 25 ms scan time, 0.25° angular resolution, ±40 mm accuracy, 12 or 24 V supply (current up to 150 mA, 450 mA at start-up), Ethernet 100BASE-TX interface, 905 nm class 1 laser. The manufacturer also offers the URG, UTM, YVT and safety UAM lines. This is a good example of a light sensor for a mobile robot: the data you need to be able to read is explained in “How to Read a Robot Datasheet”.

Role in a robot

A 2D scanner measures distance to obstacles in a single plane, usually a few tens of centimeters above the floor. It is the most common navigation sensor in mobile robots: for map building, localization and obstacle avoidance. Safety versions must meet the requirements described in “Robot Safety Standards”; for cobots and AMRs what counts is whether the scanner carries a safety-function certificate, not the range alone. A proven competitor is SICK, and in 3D LiDARs Hesai and Ouster compete. Depth cameras come from Orbbec and Luxonis.

Among the robots we cover, 2D scanners are found in machines for warehouses and factories settings; example designs are the MiR250 and the Locus Origin. We do not claim that these models use Hokuyo sensors, because manufacturers rarely disclose parts lists. For quadrupeds and humanoid robots, 3D sensors or cameras are more often chosen.

Cost and availability in Poland

A 2D scanner of the UST class is usually one of the cheaper navigation items, but we give no prices — we have no current price list, and prices differ between shops. For a domestic integrator that usually means buying through European automation distributors. The cost balance of a whole robot is discussed in “Humanoid Robot TCO: How to Calculate Total Cost”, and a map of Polish companies in “Polish Robotics Companies”.