optical flow sensor for mobile robot navigation

Hi friends..I badly need your help.My project is to design a flow sensor for mobile robot navigation.That is the mobile should not hit the walls on right and left,just go straight.distance is to be measured continuously as velocity of the image and the this data is used to navigate the robot along the straight path.I will be very thankful if anyone guides me on this..Waiting for reply..

And how will you process the data with a simple arduino?
What research have you done already?
What sensor do you want to use?

My first guess would be to use optical mouse sensors to detect visual flow. You'll need a lens to focus the mouse at a distant object rather than a nearby surface. Then you can use the mouse quadrature signals to detect when your robot is deviating from straight.

I thought of using adns 2610 sensor with hdns 2100 lens and interface that with arduino board..Or i thought of using cmucam with arduino board..which would be a better option and how should i go about it ??

ashirwad86:
I thought of using adns 2610 sensor with hdns 2100 lens and interface that with arduino board..Or i thought of using cmucam with arduino board..which would be a better option and how should i go about it ??

The ADNS-2610 would probably work but you wouldn't want to use the standard lens. It's designed for focusing on surfaces within an inch or two. You probably want something like a webcam lens to focus on more distant objects, the wider the angle the better. Also the 2610 is obsolete as of January 31st, 2011. It was replaced by the ADNS-5050 or ADNS-2700.

The ADNs-2700 is a one-chip USB mouse so that would not be easy to interface. The ADNS-5050 has the same 2-wire serial interface as the old ADNS-2610 so that would work. I would get the ADNS-3000 because I'm more familiar with the SPI serial interface than of the 2-wire serial interface.

CMUCAM would be WAY more expensive ($100-$200 each) than an ADNS-3000 chip ($1.56 each from Digi-Key)

I have got the adns 2610 sensor with hdns 2100 lens already.But i want guidance as to how should i go about this.Because i am new in this robotic world.I am trying to improve my knowledge but as of now i need help with my project.an "optical flow sensor" for mobile robot navigation.

Have a look here:

I came across the following while doing some research. It wasn't relevant, but I read the entire thing because it was so fascinating. I think it will help you:

There's a lot on that web site, so get comfy and enjoy!