sensors

Decimus 2 sensor geometry

Posted Sun, 08/11/2009 - 23:23 by peteh

Decimus 2 is now nearly ready to go. I don’t have much hope of having it ready for the Japan contest but it is worth a try. The mouse weighs only 2/3 as much as its predecessor at about 115g with batteries. This weight saving is almost entirely due to the use of the new 1717 size motors. It looks like everything is working so today, I set up the sensors. These have a different alignment to those I have used before.

Line Follower Sensors Setup

Posted Sun, 16/11/2008 - 21:17 by peteh

IMG_3258With the sensors installed and the robot pretty well complete, it is time to see if they can actually do the job they were designed for. the idea is that the line of sensors will be able to measure the robots offset from the centre of the line over as wide a range as possible.

Line follower sensor experiments

Posted Tue, 11/11/2008 - 04:58 by peteh

IMG_3237 The simplest arrangement for a line follower is probably two sensors with digital outputs. As long as one can see the line and the other can see the background, the controller is happy otherwise it must turn left or right as appropriate. I was after something a bit more sophisticated for Bob the Line follower...

New line follower robot

Posted Tue, 11/11/2008 - 03:31 by peteh

Img_3222a Line followers are a perennial favourite of the small robot builder. It is not hard to make something that will bumble about and follow a line marked out on the floor. the technology can be very simple but the same basic idea is used in sophisticated robots on factory floors. The tricky part is in making the line-follower fast and smooth in its response. Whether or not I can do that remains to be seen but I am going to have a go ...

 

Sensor alignment

Posted Sat, 29/03/2008 - 03:18 by peteh

IMG_2514 For consistent results, the sensors on a micromouse need to be carefully aligned and then fixed in place. In a perfect world, the emitters would all have the same radiation pattern and would generate the same amount of illumination for a given current. Well, that is never going to happen without hand-picking the devices. That would take a long time so we make do with what we have and work around their limitations. Similarly, the detectors have variations to cope with as well. The first step is to get the emitters lined up and pointing where they should...