Pololu IR Beacon Transceiver and Drone

I found this https://www.pololu.com/product/701/faqs

and I can’t believe that I found what I want!

I have some technical questions if you don’t mind:
1- I want to place the beacon (transmitter) in the ground, and I’ll place 4 receiver in a drone , will the receivers in the drone be able to find the exact location of the IR beacon ??

2- Do I have to ware about reflections and other factors?

3- if it enough to purchase 1 package only for my application?

4- Can I program it using MATLAB?

5- Also, will the orientation of the receiver will matter, if it facing down or other direction since the drone will be flying at higher level than the beacon

6- Accuracy ?

The 4 receivers will be attached to the drone (1 receiver in each side), if the detected signal is on the right then the drone will turn right

Also, will the orientation of the receiver will matter, if it facing down or since the drone will be flying at higher level than the beacon

If you have other options according to my need please provide me with a link J

Hello Omar.

I do not think our beacon pairs are appropriate for your application. The beacons function as transceiver pairs and are meant to give robots a simple means of detecting the general direction to each other; they do not sense distance. In addition, we have not tested the beacons at different relative heights, the beacons do not perform well with sun light, and the maximum range indoors is about 20 ft.

If you tell us more about what you are trying to accomplish, I might be able to suggest a more appropriate sensor.

-Josh

Hello @joshd

Here is my project idea

My project is : I’ll create an IR beacon consists of IR emitters ( the beacon will be like a half ball so it can radiaties everywhere in the room) , I’ll attach 4 IR receivers in the UAV( flying object). The job of this UAV is to locate/find the IR beacon that is in the ground (this can be done by analysing the signal received by one of the receiver in the UAV using triangulation)
My question is: is that possible ??
this is the IR receiver that I want to use http://www.vishay.com/docs/82458/tssp40.pdf
and this is the IR transmitters that I’ll form a beacon from http://www.vishay.com/docs/81009/tsal6100.pdf

Its Ok to know the direction only, but will it know the wavelength of the emitter or any other information about your Beacon??

can you help me in the above project :slight_smile:

Thank you

Hello.

This sounds like how our IR beacons essentially work. Since the sensors only give readings corresponding to the four cardinal directions, there might not be enough information to triangulate the location of the transmitter beacon. In theory you could make the components you mentioned work as part of a larger design, but it will not be easy and would require considerable experimental effort on your part.

-Josh.