In an effort to share our experiences with other teams and organizations we wanted to highlight one of the sensors that has been instrumental in our robot operations throughout the years. As a perfect example we used 6+ of these specific sensors on our 2018 FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) robot, Tesseract.
The aim of the game was to acquire, move, and place Power Cubes in an environment with a limited field of view. Tesseract used DFRobot Adjustable IR Proximity Sensors to indicate when it had possession of a Power Cube. When the acquisition process was complete, as confirmed by the sensors, our lift mechanism would raise to a ready position. Subsequently, once each Power Cube was delivered, the sensors confirmed the delivery and the lift mechanism would descend back to the ready position. The accurate and efficient performance of the sensors allowed Tesseract to improve overall cycle time.
Overall, the DFRobot Adjustable IR Proximity Sensors sensor enabled a more driver-friendly system as well as a more consistent and faster autonomous mode which expanded Tesseract’s performance capabilities and reduced the occurrence of Human Error.