2D LiDAR in the palm of your hand

SICK’s Tim1 and Tim2 2D LiDAR sensors have been developed with simplicity and economy in mind to enable rapid set-up of area monitoring, presence detection and collision avoidance, even in the smallest of machine spaces.

With a compact design that fits in the palm of your hand, the SICK Tim1 and Tim2 were initially conceived as lightweight, low-power devices to serve the growth in small battery-operated mobile industrial vehicles worldwide.

“They offer equally rugged industrial performance when used for area monitoring or object detection in logistics and storage applications, for door access monitoring, as well as for building security,” says SICK. The Tim2 is even being integrated into interactive screen systems to provide touch screen detection – eg, for education and entertainment purposes.

Simplicity and performance

The SICK Tim1 sensors are pre-configured to facilitate easy set-up of one or two monitored fields, while the Tim2 outputs raw data in real time via an Ethernet interface to integrate with any industrial control. Despite their simplicity, both sensors can detect even small objects over a wide field of view (200° for the Tim1 and 240° for the Tim2). “Thanks to a frequency of 14.5Hz, and SICK’s pioneering HDDM+ scanning technology, stable, high-resolution detection is assured, even where ambient light is poor, or in the presence of dirt, dust or moisture.”

No matter whether the monitored area is rectangular or free shape, it is easy to teach the SICK Tim1 the contours of its surroundings to reach an impressive 10m range and a detection field of up to 15.7 m², despite its small size. Configuring replacement sensors is simply plug-and-play by downloading the pre-taught parameters over ethernet/IO-Link.

“With the SICK Tim2 LiDAR sensors, rapid and flexible configuration of the sensing area up to 200m² is straightforward, using the SICK SOPAS Engineering Tool, making it ideal for Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) applications, as well as highly reliable and accurate measurement to detect objects.”

Low-budget collision avoidance

Weighing just 90 g and with a power consumption as low as 2.2 W, the SICK Tim1 and Tim2 are said to be particularly well suited for collision avoidance duties on small, low-budget automated mobile robots (AMRs).

“The SICK Tim 1 and Tim 2 are also ideal, reliable low-cost detection devices to monitor the entire width of warehouse storage bays during loading and unloading, making it easier to detect the presence of packages of various shapes and sizes than when using a single-beam distance sensor. Especially where using multiple sensors or light grids would be expensive and time-consuming, the sensors are also ideal for monitoring areas such as large bins or totes – eg, to detect protruding objects.”

The SICK Tim1 and Tim2 measure just 100mm high by 60mm wide, so they can be installed in areas where larger and heavier conventional laser scanners would be unsuitable and at a much lower cost, it is stated. “Installation is simple, with a range of click-in mounting kits, with the option of a protective cover and shock absorber to withstand tough industrial conditions.”