We built the beacons. We loaded the EDU RC with the
beacon code. We built a servo-mounted
tracker. We loaded the competition RC with the
tracker code. We turned it on. We got the IR detectors plugged into the
right digital inputs.
It worked.
BUT the biggest problem we had with the system was reflected IR. The tracker would lock on and track the beacon beautifully. It would also lock on and track
reflections of the beacon just as beautifully. Imagine a flashlight in a house of mirrors. The tracker was happy to track any one of at least two dozen different points in the room.
This was in a normal room with normal walls and furniture. I can't imagine what would happen with gobs of aluminium diamond plate and robots thrown into the mix.
The bottom line for our team was that the system is not reliable enough to use on its own. It could be helpful if used in tandem with some other sensor package. We will probably use an IR tracker but it will have to agree with our odometry and our angular rate sensor before our software believes what it's telling us.
-Joel