I am currently a senior at Devry University and my team is engaged in a senior project. We would like to build and program a robot to follow a person around. We would like to use the DF Rover robot. We were wondering what would be the best sensors to equip the robot with to follow a person around. We were looking at a couple of different ones. A bluetooth, IR, or RF sensor. We weren’t sure which one would be the best. We also want to make sure that the sensor doesnt pick up too much noise andf interfere with the signal. Does anyone out there have any suggestions on what would be the best for our project?
thank you for the replies so quickly guys Mr. Benson, I watched and read over the different sensors in the tutorial, I like the IR sensors because I think they will be pretty much what we want, but the question I have is? Can we make the IR sensor specific for one person. The idea of our project is that a robot has a IV attached to it and it follows a hospital patient where ever he or she may go. Can we make it specific so that if someone would walk past the robot won’t follow that person and stay with our patient.
sorry I misread your reply. Okay when you say tag the human with something that the robot can follow, what do you think would be our best choice as far as a sensor stand point. I was looking at blue tooth, RFID tag or a stereo camera. The second question is are all three of these compatible with the df rover robot
Take a look at the Grand Tutorial series: Lesson 7, practical example #1 at the bottom. Thermal is an interesting idea, except that you could follow any heat source, not just that of a target human. The best approach is to “tag” the human with something the robot can actually follow.
The Pololu IR Beacon Transceivers are designed for “cat and mouse” applications which seems great for what you want to do. The four detectors help determine the direction the light (from a transmitter attached to the patient) is coming from. You would use normal distance sensors to ensure the robot remained at a safe distance and did not bump into the patient. The patient would need to wear something that emitted the correct IR light.
I know this may be a bit left field for what you are considering but how about using a thermal array. They can be used to identify a person or living thing (cat/dog etc) and thus follow it. Something like this.