ULTRASONIC
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MOBILE ROBOTIC AGENTS
Douglas
A. Hopper and Wade O. Troxell
Mechanical
Engineering Department, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1374
(970)492-9139
hopper@engr.colostate.edu, wade@engr.colostate.edu
ABSTRACT
Communication between robotic agents requires synchronized transmitting and sensing of data in the real world environment. We employed pre-made ultrasonic rangefinding units to successfully send signals from a stationary base to a tethered mobile receiver in a benchtop demonstration. When initiated, a sensor unit emitted a 40 kHz signal. By setting the order and timing of the signal, the receiver unit could detect the base had sent a signal. Ultrasonic waves were reflected with a cone mounted above the base emitter, enabling the signal to be detected omnidirectionally with radius of up to 6.7 m in 19.5 msec.
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Sensor units/programming from: www.acroname.com; www.oopic.com; www.sdtnorthamerica.com
The authors wish to thank the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office for funding this project, Colorado State University for providing resources of the RAMLab to perform the experiments for this study, and the IAC for lending use of the SDT detector. Special thanks to coworker Miquel Salt for his untiring efforts to assemble and maintain the setup.