Jabil Inc. innovative omnidirectional sensor has clinched the Best of Sensors 2021 award in the Optical & Cameras category. The award highlights cutting-edge advancements and achievements that are moving the sensors industry forward.

“After reviewing all of the Best of Sensors award submissions, it is clear that the sensors industry continues to thrive with new, innovative solutions,” said Charlene Soucy, senior director, Sensors Converge. “The goal of our program is to honor and promote wide recognition of the industry’s most transformative technologies and teams. Congratulations to this year’s award winners.”

Extremely Wide Field of View

The innovative time-of-flight (ToF) depth sensor from Jabil Optics features an industry-leading 270° × 60° field of view (FOV). The narrow fields of views of conventional ToF sensors force industrial mobile robotics platforms to integrate multiple sensors for collision avoidance. In contrast to conventional solutions, the extremely wide FOV of the omnidirectional sensor removes the need for integrating multiple sensors. It eliminates the complexity of stitching multiple point clouds, the challenges of maintaining the alignment and calibration of multiple sensors.

Jabil’s optical business unit has made the ground-breaking, solid-state design to support lower-cost autonomous mobile robotics and collaborative robotics platforms.

“We are honored to receive this Best of Sensors award,” said Ian Blasch, senior director of business development, Jabil Optics. “We see this award as external validation of the high-quality design capabilities coming from our Jabil engineering and design teams. The omnidirectional sensor is one of many novel sensors Jabil is architecting for our robotics, industrial and automotive customers.”

Premier Provider of Advanced Optics

For nearly two decades, Jabil Optics has been recognized by leading technology companies as the premier service provider for advanced optical design, industrialization and manufacturing.

Jabil Optics designers, engineers and researchers specialize in solving complex optical problems for its customers in 3D sensing, augmented and virtual reality, action camera, automotive, industrial and healthcare markets. Customers leverage expertise in product design, process development, testing, in-house active alignment, supply chain management and manufacturing expertise from Kasalis, a technology division within Jabil.

Industry Stand Out

The awards program was created to spotlight the year’s best innovations, technologies, teams, and individuals in the sensors industry. Submissions were judged based on the value to the marketplace, the impact of the problems it solves or issues it addresses, and uniqueness of the design. The judges for the Best of Sensors awards were Jack Gold, J. Gold Associates, LLC; Roger Grace, Roger Grace Associates; Matt Hamblen, Fierce Electronics; Catherine Liao, Blumio; and Brian Zahnstecher, PowerRox.