What are sensor fusion techniques?

Sensor fusion techniques are ways to combine information from different sensors so we can understand things better.

Imagine you're playing hide and seek in a big park. You have two friends helping you find the person who's hiding: one friend has a loudspeaker, and the other has a flashlight. The loudspeaker helps you hear where the person is, but it might not always be clear if they’re behind a tree or under a bench. The flashlight shows you where people are, but only if they're close enough to see.

Sensor fusion is like having both friends work together, the loudspeaker gives you one clue, and the flashlight gives you another. By putting those clues together, you can figure out exactly where the person is hiding, even if neither clue alone was perfect.

Think of a robot trying to move around a room. It might have a camera, like your eyes, and a distance sensor, like your sense of touch when you feel something near you. The camera tells the robot what it sees, but maybe it can’t tell if an object is far away or close up. The distance sensor tells how far things are, but not always what they look like.

By using sensor fusion techniques, the robot combines both pieces of information, just like you combining clues in hide and seek, to move smoothly and understand its surroundings better!