proximity sensor?

I want to do the same thing with my Hexacopter once I get it off the ground reliably... I just started, and still learning how to fly it, and to calibrate it properly, I don't have the necessary space to test it out, I live in the middle of a city.

My hobby is electronics and programming, and I know theoretically how to add proximity sensors, but I don't have enough time (full time job, life in general...) to work on it.

My plan is to add sensors to the arms of each motor (so 6 sensors horizontally), and one pointing up, and one down.

The problem(s) that I forsee are: added weight, and the type of sensors. I am thinking to combine 2 types of sensors, one is ultrasonic sensors, the other is infrared proximity sensors. Both of them have their own problems. With ultrasonic there is a chance they can "hear" eachother, depending of structures, so in that case, you can't have all sensors "ping" at the same time, this lowers the frequency of search... Same (reflection) problem with infrared proximity sensors, but since they are based on light, the frequency can be very high, so that is no issue, but the problem with those is distance... they cannot "see" very far, so if you fly high speed, by the time you detect something it's too late to react.

Laser sensors are out of the question because they are much more sophisticated, therefore have more weight, and the beam of light is too narrow.

I don't know of any other types of sensors that can be used for this...

By the way... here is something I made using ultrasonic sensors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Dpe1v6G-w

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Michael Ciurescu April 21, 2014 at 7:54am

I want to do the same thing with my Hexacopter once I get it off the ground reliably... I just started, and still learning how to fly it, and to calibrate it properly, I don't have the necessary space to test it out, I live in the middle of a city.

My hobby is electronics and programming, and I know theoretically how to add proximity sensors, but I don't have enough time (full time job, life in general...) to work on it.

My plan is to add sensors to the arms of each motor (so 6 sensors horizontally), and one pointing up, and one down.

The problem(s) that I forsee are: added weight, and the type of sensors. I am thinking to combine 2 types of sensors, one is ultrasonic sensors, the other is infrared proximity sensors. Both of them have their own problems. With ultrasonic there is a chance they can "hear" eachother, depending of structures, so in that case, you can't have all sensors "ping" at the same time, this lowers the frequency of search... Same (reflection) problem with infrared proximity sensors, but since they are based on light, the frequency can be very high, so that is no issue, but the problem with those is distance... they cannot "see" very far, so if you fly high speed, by the time you detect something it's too late to react.

Laser sensors are out of the question because they are much more sophisticated, therefore have more weight, and the beam of light is too narrow.

I don't know of any other types of sensors that can be used for this...

By the way... here is something I made using ultrasonic sensors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Dpe1v6G-w

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proximity sensor?

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