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A new cheap obstacle detector for robotics

Posted by Harry Olar on August 27, 2014 at 12:00pm

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There are a few obstacle detectors and rangefinders on the market, but are usually either very expensive or don't work

great outside (I am looking  at you Kinect). We decided to try to make a product that it is cheap and rugged enough to be used outdoors.

Here are some parameters:

  • detectable range: 200 mm to 1500 mm (7 to 60 inches )
    7.5 degrees angular resolution
    2 scans per second
    180 degrees view
    easy readable output data in text format
    easy interface with other boards it comes pre calibrated
    USB interface power and data

It is intended more for terestrial robots (is a bit slower than the laser rangefinders) .

Here is the link

Tags: detector, obstacle, range
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Comments

  • Mark August 27, 2014 at 3:49pm

    RS232 isn't a plus for me, but it might be for other people - on the computer side I'd just use the USB interface, which I imagine is just SPP, right?  As far as the physical connection for SPI, it doesn't matter to me... The only 'nice' feature related to SPI I can think of would be if your hardware also did the level shifting so it worked with both 3v3 and 5v logic, but that's easily addressable on my side (I just always appreciate devices that do that).  I don't have any experience with developing for CAN, so can't comment on that, other than I don't use it (but not for any particular reason).  ;)

  • Harry Olar August 27, 2014 at 3:31pm

    Would be ok If there is an RS232 port with a DB9 connector that also exposes a SPI interface?

  • Harry Olar August 27, 2014 at 3:20pm

    Guys,

    Thanks for information.

    Any help that you can provide with the campaign , I would be deeply in debt to you.

    Thanks

    Harry

  • Admin
    Thomas J Coyle III August 27, 2014 at 3:15pm

    @Harry,

    I have worked with both the short and long range Sharp IR sensors and they were marginal in an outdoor environment at the speeds that our rovers were travelling at.

    I suspect that they will work well indoors and I believe that your sensor will be perfect for that environment.

    Regards,

    TCIII AVD

  • Harry Olar August 27, 2014 at 3:11pm

    CAN bus is indeed better as immunity, but I am afraid that a lot of people might be put off by complexity, and also needing hardware.

  • Admin
    Thomas J Coyle III August 27, 2014 at 3:04pm

    @Harry,

    CAN bus is getting to be the way to go for peripherals as it has good noise immunity compared to RS232 or SPI/I2C.

    Regards,

    TCIII AVD

  • Harry Olar August 27, 2014 at 2:55pm

    Hi Mark,

    would a RS232(UART )  work for you. This is in interface that we were thinking about adding.

  • Mark August 27, 2014 at 2:54pm

    And it would be nice to actually see some live video showing your prototype doing something... Show your app running on the computer, and the device, and move things around in front of it showing how well it does at detection, etc.

  • Mark August 27, 2014 at 2:52pm

    Looks interesting, the price is attractive as well - I have one concern and one dealbreaker for me... The concern I would have is that when I used those Sharp sensors in the past, I had problems with them in sunlight although they worked fine indoors.  The dealkiller for more is the USB interface - I think that's cool if you're hooking it up to a computer, but it really should also have either an SPI or I2C interface, I would think either one would be simple enough to add, and then it gives me the ability to more tightly integrate it with the hardware.  If you had I2C or SPI I'd pull the trigger, but in general the bots I build don't have USB hosts on them...

  • Harry Olar August 27, 2014 at 1:22pm

    Thanks Gary,

    you are certanly right.While the performance of the other scanners are better , also they are more expensive.

    Also we tweaked a bit the price and now it is $139 for a unit .

    I think it is a great unit for small robots .And we offer software and support.

    Thanks

    Harry 

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