robotmaker
USA
Asked
— Edited
I was hopping to use the sensor testing bench i have at work,but work wont let me 
but i will be making one or buying one
One i get it will be doing SONAR testing first ,detecting materials and different types of sonars and corner wall detecting ,witch is fairly hard with most sonars
you have 3 points ,where the walls meet and each side of the wall
for very good navigation you need where the walls meet.
from each 4 corners you can make a good navigation map (xy)
ANOTHER test is testing different sonars and comparing them,i think my new digital scope has a way to do graphs or waveforms and save them
Next is IR sensors
Sensor bench (mostly called a optical bench) as i call it is pretty simple to make its mostly a sloted guide rail with a ruler and attachments to hold different type of sensors and materials under test.
Mostly for distance sensors.
it is high $82 with shipping,edmund scienctific but at a lower price,but out of stock
i hate spreadsheets,so will use notepad or word pad for my data
FIRST is maxsonar sonars and then daventech SRF-04 and next china types.
Mostly checking for distance accuracy and stablity at at horizonal and vertical position
plus current min-max on each type.
Corner wall pickup is the hardest for sensors to pick up,need a very narrow cone detection.
After its done next is IR testing.
If I wanted a sensor to monitor my robots energy consumption what would you recommend?
CURRENT SENSOR
find one near the max current of your battery
one i have the link too is 0-30 amps,but they make others
it has a analog output and very easy to use
Do you have an opinion on vibration sensors? If I wanted to detect some one walking near my robot it that possible?
All do about the same.
Motion is for people distance,capactive types are for close touching ,also vibration are the same.
A good motion sensor is PIR part # AMN22111 ,very small fairly low cost ,great people detector
And they make them with analog or digital output ,made by panasonic
what good about them then other types of PIR sensors are very tiny,very easy to mount
On current sensor dont really need to detect voltage,it remains constant till current level drops too low.
Black Vibration Sensor
Just wan't sure how sensitive it was. Guess I'll find out when I get it. I've been looking at the spark fun peizo vibration sensors. I wanted one that was super sensitive and another one that would be much less. I was hoping to be able to detect someone walking downstairs and some one walking twords the robot.
What a vibration sensor is a 2 pins and sometimes a ball touches the contacts.
Some use too use mercury,best type of vibration sensor is a adjustable type
second on vibration you need to bump in to the robot to set if off
PEIZO types are about the same you need it to be very close to the robot (touching)
Vibration sensor is when you bump in to the robot and make it vibrate
On piezo and capactance types it very close touching
Proximity are made for longer distance like PIR TYPES,but are hard to make ,and mostly RFI TYPES
SO THEY DO HAVE PROBLEMS
There is no software i use,mostly is a distance meter in inches for ping type sensors
one i got was from china, any type of sonar with PING and ECHO ouputs can be used
it has a microprocessor and lcd display plus calibrated optical bench with a ruler
I was going to make one using a arduino and lcd
for stability ,i use a scope
will look for the link on the distance meter from CHINA