[sdiy] proximity detectors anyone ?

[Philippe Derenne]

Hi JBV and all,

I've been working in an industrial environment for years, and I've seen 2
types of detectors giving a measure of distance : ultrasonic and laser.
Depending on the range you wish to measure, you need to use the right one.
I've seen ultrasonic detectors "see" a glass pane at about 50 centimeters.
The laser type detector could see a reflective target at about 10 meters.
To be complete, there are also capacitive detectors, but the range of those
is rather short.
The output is generaly 4-20 mA, so you may use those detectors at a long
distance from the device measuring the signal.
The main problem could be the price of such devices... but the project could
be very interesting !

Phil.


----- Original Message -----
From: "jbv" <jbv.silences at club-internet.fr>
To: "synth diy" <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2006 8:44 PM
Subject: [sdiy] proximity detectors anyone ?


> Hi list,
>
> today an idea arose during a conversation with friends...
> It began with proximity detectors used in robotics, and
> especially the fact that those sensors are used on a moving
> device to detect non-moving objects of the environment in
> order to avoid them...
> but what if the idea was reversed : fixed detectors to detect
> distance of moving objects ? for instance 6 detectors, each
> one on 1 side of a cube, and moving objects in between
> (a moving hand, balloons, bubbles, a butterfly, flies,
> smoke, whatever). Signals sent by detectors would be
> hooked to a uC to compute in realtime the xyz position of
> the moving hand, and these parameters would be used as
> VC signals for synths...
> in the case of a hand, I guess a joystick or a dataglove could
> also be used to determine xyz position in space, but I'm sure
> there are many other funny applications...
>
> so here's my question : does anyone have any experience with
> proximity detectors, and what would be the best choice : IR,
> ultrasonic...
> I've already found several papers on the subject via google, but
> I'd like to have the opnion of this list as well...
>
> Best,
> JB
>