robotmaker
I mostly know about every sensor made and run many many tests on them some for work but mostly for robot designs i ,might have well over 30 different types
ON sonars narrow detection is needed to mostly detect the corner of the 2 walls that meet for good navigation ,but also thin table legs or chair legs ,also doorways .
When a sonar transmitt a utrasonic pulse it sends like a cone shape.wider the cone shape wider the detection.
So there is 2 ways to do it,so far maxsonars sells smaller cone angles $30 each
Other way is easy with like SRF-04 types like EZB sells on the transmitt side you need to reduce the SIDE SLOPES or cone angle. its fairly easy only need a tube that fits on the outside of the ultrasonic tranducer and in the inside place a foam tube smaller the ID smaller the cone and length is about 1 1/2 inch long on the tube,can use cardboard type on foam tube inside length is about 1 inch try to match it to get a tight fit inside the cardboard tube
also best place to place them on robots is on each corner at 45 deg and then have 2 facing forward like headlights with no cardboard tube or foard to pick up wide angle objects
latter on will give you info on IR sensors too
Rich that is an interesting idea. The Heath/Zenith 2000 has a sonar mounted on a rotating motor that does a 360 degree sweep making a virtual map. See the attached image of the Polaroid sonar in the top housing
@Robotmaker, is this what you were explaining to do to the Sonar EZ-Robots sell?
A small piece of foam (I used a camping mat which is made of EVA Foam)
Roll up in to a tube and push over the tx of the Sonar (excuse the crude method of self amalgamating tape and poor photos)
I appreciate these are probably too long, I still need to cut to size but if this is right I intend to glue the seam rather than use tape to make it a tube.Also, does it have any effect if I do this to the Rx too? The reason I ask if purely cosmetic as if this is right I plan to make a front piece to fit in the chest of the Omnibot body so it has 2 holes rather than 2 tubes sticking out.
THATS kinda whats done,mostly need to check different size length been about 2 years since i did this test i need to find info and my data ,i think it was near 1/2 inch Above the sonar,i think its needed for both,since i use MAXSONARS that uses only one utrasonic sensor.
Second on placing on the robot ideal spot is sonar detects above sofa's or what most do it add a IR INLINE WITH IT
Good item about adding a IR sensor to it is that one sensor is good for detecting certain types of material ,and other will pick up the ones the other misses,do need to set sensors at the right distance
to detect corners of walls on a small robot design use a panning design to pan to 45 deg left and right radar wont really work,it need to pan left stop and take a reading and then right
as soon as i get my optic bench in or make one ,will do a full testing on all types of materials for both sonar and IR
My favorate of all sonars are MAXSONARS ,very low current (3ma), 3 outputs ,small size and only one hole to make,plus with much more accuracy