The Rovio system works by projecting ir lines on the ceiling and uses a ir camara on the robot ,looking up to see them and workout where it is . it works great and is amazing to see it find its way back to recharge with just a press of a button.

Steve i do see that now,and uses a filter,problem is most circuits everyone comes of wityh unless each person has a lot of money to try and see if it works No way telling if this design works

For me it seems like a good project,first i can very easy spend the money,second more then anything i like to make it and compare to my other designd

I made so many home base finder designs very hard to count them.

But with some many projects i dont when i going to start on it

I DID save this link to one day try it

How about you share some of these home base finder designs you have then?

The cost to build and test the "spider ear" shouldn't be too high at all, the most expensive part would be the IC which is not all that expensive. Other than that it's made up of mainly transistors and resistors, I'd be very surprised if the circuit couldn't be built for under $20.

As for knowing if the design works or not, it's simple to see if the theory behind the designs would work or not. And each person would not need to try each design.

YES trying to get my designs up,most already the designs that have been posted that i have. Second is the time,i have my robots to be done like everyone else too

Second is the cost is the problem,but the waste of money if it doesnt work,there where the problem is,

I cant say it doesnt or does work the design,only that some designs others made didnt work to well,and i ,made it perfect

MAYBE if you have the time,can you try the design and less us know if it works.

Looking at the design you need a programmer using D25 parallel port plus software or anothger programmer needed for that chip,that kinda the hard part.

maybe somehow can use EZB ,but then iy ups the cost to about $90

I was looking more at the idea of how it works , more than the hardware he used. yes it will cost a bit to much to setup to program the processor if you dont already own it . Can a similar thing be done with the ezb .?

Steve_c

'@

same thing i thought,looks easy to add to EZB would need some good teting,and the scripts should be easy.

only problem witch is kinda small,does say if the chirping can be heard

SAYS it sounds like chickets,i tried of those guys chirping in my house,The crickets are my GECKO food very noisy guys they are.

AND it raises the price up to $90

I'd advise to take what Robotmaker says with a pinch of salt (no doubt he will go off on one about that but I stand by it), he doesn't seem to grasp that these are all just concepts and discussions at the moment. I'm sure we may be able to do something based on sound and direction for very little money and no geckos. If there are sound sensors which can detect only a certain frequency then a couple of those on the robot and a sound emitter on the homebase could be a practical solution.

I'll need to look in to it but if there are sound sensors which can detect high pitch or low pitch noise that is outside of the human hearing range, which act in the same way as other sensors (i.e. the louder it is the higher the voltage) then having one either side of the robot will be a good base for direction detection.

While sound is not the "best" plan it's a plan. it's an option for the user to choose if any of the others are not suitable (i.e. cost too much, not fit for their area etc.)

Another idea is line following. Not really suitable for in a home but for in a warehouse it could be a cheap and simple solution.