Hi! I only did one project with arduino so far and I have to build something like the one in this video. I know how the ultrasonic sensor works and I will be using a continuous servo so I already experimented on how to make them run. The problem is I cant figure out how the three ultrasonic sensor in the video works. I mean does it uses something like a comparator like how electronics projects that uses more than one sensors does? Or is it just a simple binary like thing where 1-0-0 would be turn left and 0-0-1 is turn right? I welcome all ideas, suggestions, violent comments or mocking if it would help me understand how the thing works. Thanks in advance!
You say you understand how the ultrasonic sensor works but your post indicates otherwise. Ultrasonic sensors measure distance by timing how long it takes for an ultrasonic ping to leave the transmitter, echo off an object and return to the receiver. Since we know the approximate speed of sound we can then calculate the distance. The sensor does output a digital signal(5V or 0V) but the actual data is contained in the delay between the microcontroller toggling the trig pin and the echo pin going HIGH. So basically this robot simply turns toward the sensor that has the shortest ping-echo duration. It's actually more smart than that. As you can see at simple human follower based on ultrasonic sensor - YouTube, the robot actually avoids running into the person by stopping or moving backwards to maintain a certain set distance.
Oh thank you, I've never realized it was just the closest distance measured. Man I feel stupid now. I actually was able to do forward, stop and backward with a single ultrasonic sensor. This project can also improved by including a tagging system right, so that the robot would only follow a certain individual and not be confused when it meets a stranger on its way.
