Depth cameras for robotics

A wrist camera has to focus at contact distance. Most depth cameras bottom out between 14 and 30 cm, which is further than the object you are gripping. This single number eliminates most of the market.

Rolling shutter on RGB is tolerable on a fixed rig and a real problem on a moving platform. If the robot drives, insist on global shutter across both sensors.

USB is fine on a bench and fragile on a chassis. PoE and GMSL2 survive cable runs and vibration. Getting this wrong is discovered during integration, not procurement.

Orbbec is China-origin and offered to commercial and education customers only. If the programme serves defense or government, the shortlist narrows before any spec is compared.

The standard pairing is a D405 on the wrist and a D435i for the scene. Nothing else focuses at 7 cm, so the wrist position has no real substitute. Where budget matters across several stations, the Gemini 335 covers the scene role at roughly half the cost.

Global shutter on both sensors, a robot-grade connector, and an ingress rating. D456 for USB with IP65, Gemini 335Lg for GMSL2, ZED X Nano for Jetson platforms, OAK-D Pro where you want obstacle detection without adding a compute box.

If the programme extends DROID or fine-tunes on it, matching optics matters for calibration transfer — that means ZED. Ask us; those models are special-order rather than shelf stock.