Ultrasonic Sensor Capability

Using Arduino Sensors
1

Hello everyone,

I am wanting to get some advice on if a project I want to do seems feasible or not. I am wanting to hook up an Arduino to an ultrasonic sensor to detect the presence of a basketball. I'd like the sensor to be at the bottom of the net and pointing upward and have a cone area for detecting the ball. I'm not just interested in the makes, I want to know the misses also thus the reason for the cone area. So far I've tested an ultrasonic sensor and it can pick up a ball just fine. However, when I have the sensor looking up at the hoop it detects other things such as the rim or backboard. I read something about how there may be some sensors that can return all of the analog envelope output, perhaps allowing me to see the presence of a new object. However, I'm struggling to find a ultrasonic sensor that says it outputs something other than the flat distance of one object in the path. Does anyone have any thoughts on how I can detect multiple objects in the sensor path? Perhaps one that I can hook up to Arduino and it just lets me know if there is a large fast moving object in area, and ignore static objects like the hoop?

Please let me know if you think this is feasible or not with an ultrasonic. Thanks for your help. (Posted this under the project board also, but then I saw this one and I think it is more appropriate here).

2

Now im new to Arduino myself but this one

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/252291123132?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Directivity (deg ) X-axis: 60±15
Directivity (deg ) Y-axis: 60±15

so as long as the basket ball were to fall past this range and you could create and detect the ultrasonic signal im sure it would work however i tend to think perhaps a "photogate" might be a better choice?

someone with more knowledge might chime in

3

Thanks for the feedback KayKay. For that sensor you mentioned, I think it would work but I need to also detect motion above the basket area. This ultra sonic sensor would just return a yes / now if it senses and object right? Not sure about the photo gate but I'll try to research that option a little bit. It seems like the photo gate would be costly to set up for detecting a basketball shot attempt because it would need to be quite large to get the area above the basket.