Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
We tested using optical tracking of robot position a decade ago, using an optical mouse with the equivalent of a telephoto lens. When the distance from the sensor to the carpet is perfectly consistent, the results are great. But any variation in height changes the field of view, and that changes the relationship between motion of the image and physical motion of the robot. We couldn't eliminate vibration and bounce from the system, and eventually abandoned the project as unworkable on a real-world FRC robot. (It might have been worth trying for Lunacy, with the super-smooth floor and very low accelerations, but the trailer still caused some variations in tilt that would have to be compensated for somehow.)
If the carpet had a pattern on it that could be detected and measured, keeping the horizontal distances calibrated, I think it would be a good idea to revisit the concept.
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Great input, our initial tests a few years ago showed an accurate, fast ranging sensor is part of the solution, so the current prototype has a fast IR ranging sensor.
The vibration part would seem to be managed by a very high framerate in the sensor, our previous experiments worked w/the ADNS3080 optical mouse sensor which had a 6400hz framerate if I recall correctly. What framerate were you using, and what was the general frequency of the vibration?
The resolution of the ADNS3080 was very low, which is why our hope is the much higher resolution of the PX4FLOW sensor will allow it to seem more structure in the carpet than the ADNS3080. Getting enough CPU and illumination to use the higher res at a high framerate is the challenging part currently encountered.