Development of positioning device for evaluation of omni-directional collision detecting bumper

We developed a prototype of omni-directional collision detecting bumper using potentiometers for omni-directional mobile vehicles. However, the prototype had low durability because it used contact-type sensors and link mechanism to convert from the displacement of the position and orientation of the bumper to the rotation of the potentiometers. Therefore we developed a new prototype of omni-directional collision detecting bumper using non-contact type sensors. It is important to evaluate the accuracy of displacement detection of the new prototype. However, it is considered that the experiment results which were obtained by manual operation may contain human error. This paper focuses on decreasing human error and we develop a positioning device for the evaluation experiment of the new omnidirectional collision detecting bumper to ensure the reliability of the experiment results.