Apparatus, system, and method of certifying sensing for autonomous robot navigation

1. A certification system for a sensing camera that at least partially navigates an autonomous mobile robot, comprising:

a robot body;

at least one light source resident on the robot body proximate to the sensing camera such that the at least one light source is capable of at least partially irradiating a field of view (FoV) of the sensing camera, wherein the at least one light source has characteristics substantially mated to the sensing camera;

at least one processing system that provides the at least partial navigation, wherein the at least one processing system comprises a processor for executing non-transitory computing code stored in at least one computing memory, and wherein execution of the computing code by the processor comprises the steps of:

actuating the at least one light source at a predetermined time and for a predetermined duration;

monitoring data from the sensing camera for confirmation of the actuating;

calculating at least one of the latency, throughput, and reactivity of the sensing camera based on the monitoring;

at least partially navigating based on the calculating.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the calculating further comprises at least one of:

comparing an alteration of some pixels versus others in the data; and

comparing the data of the sensing camera to second data of a second sensor.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein at least the actuating, monitoring and calculating vary dependently upon at least one of a type of the sensing camera, a type of the light source type, a distance between the light source and the sensing camera, a use context of the robot, and a use environment of the robot.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the actuating comprises a choice of a frequency, a power, or a manual override of the light source.

5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising confirming proper operation of the sensing camera based on the monitoring.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the proper operation comprises minimization of the latency.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the monitoring comprises reading time-stamped pixels of the FoV of the sensing camera.

8. The system of claim 6 , wherein, if the latency is minimized, the navigating comprises allowing continued operation of the robot.

9. The system of claim 6 , wherein, if the latency is not sufficiently minimized, the navigating comprises a cessation of operation of the robot.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the navigating further comprises sending a maintenance alert.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the light source comprises one selected from the group consisting of an infrared (IR) LED, a white LED, and a colored LED.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the light source is an IR LED operating at 850 nm, consists of GaAlAs, and is side emitting.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sensing camera comprises a depth camera.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the depth camera comprises a 3 D depth camera.

15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the light source is preliminarily aligned.

16. The system of claim 1 , wherein the FoV of the sensing camera comprises at least an area on a floor over which the robot travels, and the robot body.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the navigating comprises avoiding obstacles revealed by the monitoring.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the obstacles comprises dynamic obstacles.

19. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sensing camera is a structured light camera.

20. The system of claim 1 , wherein the light source further comprises a plurality of reflectors to direct light into the FoV.