Development of a robotic proximity sensor

The design and analysis of anoncontact electro-optical proximity sensor, based on the intensity measurement of modulated light signals reflected from the surface of an object, is addressed in this paper. The proposed sensor is capable of measuring one-dimensional inclination angles in the range of +20 degrees to -20 degrees , and distances of up to 7.5 mm. Experimental results verify that the orientation measurements are robust to variations in object´s distance and its surface reflectivity, and the distance measurements are robust to variations in object´s orientation but not its surface reflectivity. Therefore, the authors propose an active sensing scheme to make the distance an active sensing scheme to make the distance measurements robust to a priori known possible variations in the object´s surface reflectivity.<>