This is the original robot on which FLoEBot is based. At the time I had not discovered LMR but I had found these phototransistors from DFRobot that are used in fire detection. The pump used here was ripped from a toy helo. Of course the pump was a bad choice as it sprayed a very thin stream making it extremely difficult to hit the flame itself. The concept did work though and of course I made a plan to improve upon this as can be seen in FLoEBot.
Update: Dec. 29 '13
For detecting the flame I used flame sensors from DFRobot. These sensors are based around the YG1006 infrared phototransistor. It is most sensitive to infrared radiation in the 940nm spectrum but can sense infrared within the 760-1100nm band. Since fire emits infrared light within this band, this sensor works great but can be blinded by sunlight or strong white light.
From the datasheet I discovered that the sensor from DFRobot has this phototransistor connected in series with a resistor. There is a capacitor in parallel with the resistor. The output from the sensor is analog and can be read easily using the arduino UNO which is the microcontroller I used.
The information from the schematic and datasheet of this sensor would later prove helpful when I designed my flame sensor for the FLoEBot as I found the PT334-6B phototransistor from Everlight with similar characteristics.
Flame detection, obstacle avoidance
- Actuators / output devices: Tamiya tank treads, Tamiya tank kit
- Control method: fully autonomous
- CPU: arduino uno
- Operating system: Arduino IDE
- Power source: 11.1V 1200mAh
- Programming language: Arduino C
- Sensors / input devices: Maxbotix EZ1, Sharp infrared sensor, DFRobot flame sensor
- Target environment: indoor
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/floebot-version-0-1