Hardware

Intel RealSense

Intel RealSense is a family of compact depth cameras, most prominently the D400 series, which computes depth from active-IR-assisted stereo and streams aligned RGB-D imagery over USB at up to 90 frames per second. Models like the D435 and D455 became near-default sensors on research manipulation and mobile robot platforms due to their low cost, small size, and mature SDK.

Why it matters for physical AI

Ubiquitous, affordable RGB-D sensing standardized the observation space of a generation of manipulation datasets and policies, and camera choice still shapes cross-lab data compatibility today.