Can I lower the detection range for the Pololu IR Beacon?

i am using the Pololu IR Beacon Development Board for my robot swarm (m3pi with mbed) to detect each others and avoid collision. The Pololu IR Beacon Development Board is perfect and can cover the 360 degrees around the robot but the problem is that the detection range is huge for me. I want it to report another IR beacon ONLY within on 1 or 2 inches.

So, my question, Is the detection range changeable or not??

Thanks

Hello.

You could try putting in bigger current limiting resistors for the LEDs or putting something in front of the sensors to reduce their sensitivity, but I suspect it would be difficult to get consistent results at a short range like that across different lighting conditions. You might have better results for collision avoidance by putting emitters and sensors near the edges of the robots.

-Nathan

Thanks nathanb for your reply. The problem is that I have the board assembled and I don’t have the luxury to place all sensors and emitters near the edge of the 3pi. My only option is to place it at the center of the robot on top of the expansion kit (m3pi).

About the resistors, can you elaborate more on this and is it doable on the assembled version of the sensor https://www.pololu.com/product/701.

Thanks so much and waiting for your reply

The current-limiting LEDs for the IR emitters are R2-R5. They are the only big, 1206-size resistors on the board. If you replace them with more than 9.1 ohms, you’ll get less brightness.