Gyro and Sensors Galore!

Today I researched the importance of having sensors and the different types of sensors that can be used to aid the robot:

Why are sensors important for robots? Sensors are important because it gives the robot the ability to determine its surrounding and analyze its environment. As a result, the robot can become an autonomous robot that is able to perform its specified action within a certain environment. In addition, there are also sensors that send electrical signals within the robot that help each individual part of the robot decide what action it needs to perform. As a result, this helps make the robot extremely flexible in the way it can adapt to its environment by changing what signals it needs to send.

What is an Ultrasound sensor? An ultrasonic sensor is used to determine the distance between the current position of the robot and an object in the distance relative to itself. To determine its position, it sends out ultrasound waves through its transducer which then bounces off objects and creates an echo. This echo returns to the sensor and counts the sensor determines how long it takes to come back at the sensor. However, to use the information obtained by the sensor to calculate the distance, you will need to know D=1/2TC where C represents the speed of sound.

What is an IR sensor? An infrared sensor is able to determine its environment by analyzing the infrared radiation of its surrounding. Since any light source/ heat source above 5 degrees kelvin emits infrared radiation, most of the robot surroundings can be detected by the sensor. While infrared sensors simply detect infrared radiation, there are two kinds of sensors: passive and active. For active sensors, when an objects gets close to the sensor and triggers a reaction, the LED shines infrared waves that reflect back off the object and back at the receiver. For passive sensors, they only detect the existence of infrared waves but don’t emit infrared waves from LED itself.

What is an LiDar sensor? The LiDar sensor, also known as the light detection and ranging sensor is used to measure distances such as the surface of a planet. By illuminating the area with a lasers light, it can measure the reflection of the light and then use the different lightwaves to create a 3d representation of the surface. In order to map the environment, it has to perform calculations that determine the distance between the objects similar to that of an ultrasound sensor. By tracking how long it takes for each pulse of the sensor to return back helps derive the distance between the 2 objects.

What is a gyroscope? An Arduino gyroscope is a sensor that is comprised of two main abilities. The gyroscope has the 3-Axis Accelerometer that can detect the gravitational acceleration of an object. This is possible due to the sensors ability to trace along 3 axes and calculate the angle at which the sensor is located at. The second part is the 3-Axis Gyroscope which measures the rotational velocity. It is able to calculate the angle by pulling it from the velocity determined by the sensor. Putting the Accelerometer and the Gyroscope gives information on the sensor orientation. As a result, this is extremely useful within a robot as by having a sensor determine the location, it will know what next steps it should be taking or its surrounding area.