ZED X Nano Stereo Camera

The Stereolabs ZED X Nano is an extremely compact stereo camera for robot arms, humanoid robots, and other Physical AI applications. With dimensions of just 42 x 30.5 x 33.8 mm and a weight of approximately 75 grams, the camera can be positioned directly at the wrist, gripper, or end-effector of a robot. This gives the robot system a close-up view of objects and workpieces, without a large or heavy camera restricting the robot's movements.

The camera is equipped with two synchronised 2.3-megapixel global shutter sensors. A global shutter captures the entire image at the same time, resulting in significantly less distortion when recording moving objects and fast robot movements. With frame rates of up to 120 frames per second, the ZED X Nano can respond quickly in applications such as pick-and-place, bin picking, quality inspection, object recognition, and automated assembly.

By combining the two cameras with a compact stereo base of 18 mm, the ZED X Nano can not only capture colour images but also determine the distance and position of objects. Stereolabs' Neural Depth Engine 2 converts these images into detailed depth maps and 3D point clouds. This allows a robot to better understand where an object is located, how big it is, and how it should be approached or grasped. The wide viewing angle of 92 degrees horizontally and 65 degrees vertically helps to maintain sufficient overview even at short distances.

A built-in 6-axis IMU records the camera's movements and rotations. This information can be combined with the camera images for accurate positional tracking and visual-inertial odometry. This is particularly valuable when the camera is mounted on a moving robot arm, mobile robot, or humanoid robot.

The GMSL2 connection ensures reliable transmission of video images with high bandwidth and low delay. Combined with the zero-copy capture pipeline, camera images can be processed directly within an NVIDIA-based computer system, without unnecessary copy operations. This makes the ZED X Nano suitable for applications where a short reaction time and real-time image processing are important.

Through the ZED SDK, developers can utilise features for depth perception, 3D object detection, object tracking, positional tracking, and spatial mapping. In addition, the camera can be integrated with ROS 2, NVIDIA Isaac ROS, Isaac Sim, OpenCV, PyTorch, Unity, and Unreal Engine, among others. The ZED X Nano is thus a versatile vision solution for research, robot development, and the integration of compact intelligent robot systems.