Detect heading and position

Let's Make Robots Project Ideas
1

Hi all, I would like to design a system to accurately detect position and heading of an object which is supposed to be stationary but will actually shake slightly, as it will be placed on a rotary plate which is not “perfect”. I need to get the position/heading with a 30fps frequency, and down to 0.1mm precision. Objects are “blobby rocks” of size 30cmx30cmx30cm.
One option is clearly through vision systems by using cameras, but some of these objects will be rather featureless. I cannot “spoil” the object by marking it with ink.
Might laser devices be an option? I would like something that is cheap to realize in the end. How expensive and accurate a laser tracking would be for this?
All in all I would like to get rid of the the camera/vision approach and put some “active markers” on the object. For example some small rf emitting board, and have detectors around the plate to measure the distance from some of those rf emitting points, and finally deduce position and heading. Is this possible?
Or would gyroscopes/accelerometers be an option?

Thanks for any recommendation!

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Hello @klayman !

Welcome to the forum :grin:

Well, reading your requirements, I think you could use an IMU for your application. This sensor works with high refresh rates and has a high sensitivity. You can add the device to the object or base and measure any change of orientation from a base position (initial or standard).

  • Here you can find the IMU’s available, for you, I can recommend this one.
  • Also, you will need a device to read the data from it, you can use a simple Arduino board to get it the easiest way.
  • I’ll leave you here some tutorials about reading the sensors. 1, 2 y 3.

Hope this could help you :grin:

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Thanks I will give this a try!

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