Reflectance Sensor

Does anyone with experience using the QTR Reflectance Sensors know if the orientation relative to the movement of the sensor effects the readings? For instance on the 3Pi robot, the forward ones are aligned so their pins are close together. If they were to be rotated 90degrees, would that effect the output much? How about if they were closer, would they interfere?

Hello.

The orientations of the sensors don’t seem to matter very much. The only benefit might be having them oriented so that the detectors were farther underneath the robot chassis to further shelter them from ambient IR, but I think such a benefit would be fairly negligible given how little orientation affects the absolute position of the detector. If the sensors were closer together, they will see higher overall reflection because of the close proximity of other emitters. If you look at the raw readings from the 3pi sensors, you will typically see that the middle sensor gets more reflected light than the outer ones, but you can deal with this by calibrating the sensors. The interference of neighboring sensors is not the kind that will inhibit their ability to function.

- Ben