basics from Dr. Sean Wilson’s 7785 lectures

Range sensor skirt

IR Distance sensor

• Sends beams of infrared light and times of reflection
• Pros - Cheap and effective
• Cons
  • Light can be absorbed by dark surfaces
  • Sunlight and other light can mess with measurement
  • Reflective in rain/fog/snow
  • Need a lot for high resolution

Sonar / Ultrasonic distance sensor

Sends sound waves out, times reflection

• Pros: WIder than IR, works well in snow/fog/rain, inexpensive
• Cons:
  • Not good for long range distance sensing
  • slower than light
  • need many for high res
• LIDAR
  • Spinning laser
  • Pros: High res, fast and high range
  • Cons: Expensive. Poor measurements in rain/snow/fog

Algorithms

Clustering

DBSCAN