Designing an omni-directional infrared sensor and beacon system for the Eurobot competition

Abstract

In this paper the design of an omni-directional sensor which measures the angles between active infrared beacons is proposed. The aim is to develop a simple and inexpensive sensor and beacon system. Therefore an array of ten CMOS cameras with an infrared filter is used. We present the design steps and the evaluation of the sensor in detail. The systematic errors of the system are analyzed during the evaluation of the sensor's accuracy. They are compensated by a linear regression, which leads to an accuracy of less than one degree. The achieved accuracy qualifies the system for applications like landmark-based localization. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.