Worksheet: Obstacle Detection

Introduction to Mobile Robotics > Obstacle Detection

This worksheet is provided for reference only. Be sure that you follow the steps in the online directions, and answer the questions at the appropriate times. Fill out all your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

Construct: Touch Sensor

1. What did the robot do? It moved forward and it stopped when the touch sensor hit the wall 2. What caused the robot to stop? The touch sensor has a little button thing so when it hits the wall it detects the wall and stops 3. Do you think its a good idea for the robot to run into obstacles and stop? Not really. It should sense the obstacle before it stops 4. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this behaviour? The benefits are that it stops when it hits the obstacle but the drawbacks are that it stops when it hits the obstacle instead of stopping before it hits the obstacle

5. What did the robot do? It stopped before it hit the object 6. What caused the robot to stop? The Ultrasonic sensor 7. How far away from the obstacle did the robot stop? Less than 10cm 8. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this behaviour? The benefits are that it stops before it hits the object but the drawbacks are that it wouldnt know where the obstacle it is before finding a clear path 9. How reliable is this sensor as opposed to the touch sensor? Its not as reliable as a touch sensor because the robot defiantly knows when there is an object in its way whereas the ultrasonic sensor just assumes that there is an object

Contemplate

10. Think about the Construct Phase that you just completed and compare using the touch and ultrasonic sensors. i. What is the main difference between the two programs? The touch sensor hits the object before stopping whereas the ultrasonic sensor stops before it hits the object What is the main difference in the robots behaviour when you use each of the different sensors? When the touch sensor hits the object the robot reacts to hitting the wall and pushes back whereas the ultrasonic sensor stops immediately before hitting the object

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11. The ultrasonic sensor allows you to stop before you reach an object, rather than after youve run into it. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this behaviour? The benefits are that it doesnt hit the object before stopping which means that it wont move the object if it loose but the drawbacks are that it wont definitely detect where the object is so it wont know where the clear path is 12. The touch sensor only has two settings, pressed and not pressed. The ultrasonic sensor, on the other hand, can sense any distance between 0 and 200 centimetres. i. Why do you need to set a threshold level for the ultrasonic sensor, but not for the touch sensor? Because the touch sensor stops when it hits something so it doesnt need a threshold but the ultrasonic sensor uses the threshold to stop as it doesnt hit the object What happens to the robots behaviour as you change that threshold level for the ultrasonic sensor? The robot would stop closer/further out depending on what your threshold is

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Continue: Detecting Everyday Objects

Observations:

13. What does the sensor show when it has difficulty detecting anything? The robot would just keep moving because it doesnt detect anything to make it stop

14. Does the shape or curvature of an object make a difference? No because the sensor will still detect the object 15. Does the sensor detect soft or hard objects better? Why do you think this is? Hard because the object is denser so it is easier to detect 16. What is the smallest object detected? The texta 17. Does the sensor detect thin objects well? Yes. It detected the texta which is thin 18. Turn the sensor 90 degrees on its side so it is positioned upright. Does it detect thin objects better now? Yes it works because it is still sensing the object