Hello,
I bought the qtr-8rc sensors some time ago to use in a linefollower.
But i noticed they weren’t really linear.
Does anyone have a graph of the sensor value in comparison to the grey value ( 0% - 100% ) ?
Or even a formula to make it linear ?
As a linear sensor for line following would make more sense…
Also, is there any difference in linearity between the analog and digital versions ?
The sensor output is going to be a function of the IR reflectance, and that might differ from the visible light reflectance you perceive as a certain shade of gray. When it comes to line-following, however, the important factor is usually clearly distinguishing the line from the background. Why do you want the sensor response to be linear with the gray value?
It would be easier to determine the exact position of a single sensor to the line if it would be linear.
for example, if the sensor is half on and half off the line, it should return a value of 50%
This makes for more predictable results.
You definitely can tell when the sensor is partially over the line, but I think you don’t get much by having that response be linear. What you really want is a function that can take the values of all the sensors and turn it into a “line position” value. As long as this function is monotonic, it will work for PID calculations. One example is the qtr_read_line() function, which is documented in the QTR section of the Pololu AVR library command reference.