Laser Measurement (SF02) Setup & Library

Hey again forum!

I'm back to report the results of our latest experiments with the Arduino and SF02/F laser module. This time around our goal was to see if we were able to track the movement of an object within an area. In this case the object we were tracking was the Arduino Robot! :smiley:

The addition to the top of the robot is an extended target for the scanner.

What we did first, was take an initial mapping of the static area, this would serve as our environment data set and be used to tell whether a point we read during tracking was part of the static area, or was in fact the object we were tracking. This scan was done at a high resolution, ~4 seconds over 90 degrees. You can see both the room and the mapping of the room below:

Once we had our environment data set, we ran our tracking scan, which was done continuously in a sweeping motion at a lower resolution, ~1 second over the same 90 degrees. In the screenshots below you can see the results of the robot moving through the area. The yellow poles represent scanned samples that are not part of the original environment data set.

With this information you can determine the movement path for an object in the scanning area:

There is potential here to use multiple scanners to achieve higher frequency tracking or even map an area that has obstructions.