Intel today introduced the Intel RealSense Tracking Camera T265, a new tand-alone inside-out tracking device designed for autonomous vehicles, robotics, drones, augmented reality and virtual reality profucts.

The T265 uses proprietary visual inertial odometry simultaneous localization and mapping (V-SLAM) technology with computing at the edge and is key for applications that require a highly accurate and low-latency tracking solution.

The camera is powered by the Intel Movidius Myriad 2 vision processing unit (VPU), which directly handles all the data processing necessary for tracking on the machine. This makes the T265 a small footprint, low-power consumption solution that can be implemented into existing or new designs.

The T265 uses inside-out tracking, which means the device does not rely on any external sensors to understand the environment. Unlike other inside-out tracking solutions, the T265 delivers 6-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) inside-out tracking by gathering inputs from two onboard fish-eye cameras, each with an approximate 170-degree range of view. The V-SLAM systems construct and continually update maps of unknown environments and the location of a device within that environment. Since all position calculations are performed directly on the device, tracking with the T265 is platform independent and allows the T265 to run on very low-compute devices.

The only hardware requirements are sufficient non-volatile memory to boot the device and a USB 2.0 or 3.0 connection that provides 1.5 watts of power.

The Intel RealSense Tracking Camera T265 is available for pre-order now, and will begin shipping Feb. 28 at $199.