A case study of rotating sonar sensor application in unmanned automated guided vehicle

A single rotating sonar element is used with a restricted angle of sweep to obtain readings to develop a range map for the unobstructed path of an autonomous guided vehicle (AGV). A Polaroid ultrasound transducer element is mounted on a micromotor with an encoder feedback. The motion of this motor is controlled using a Galil DMC 1000 motion control board. The encoder is interfaced with the DMC 1000 board using an intermediate IMC 1100 break-out board. By adjusting the parameters of the Polaroid element, it is possible to obtain range readings at known angles with respect to the center of the robot. The readings are mapped to obtain a range map of the unobstructed path in front of the robot. The idea can be extended to a 360 degree mapping by changing the assembly level programming on the Galil Motion control board. Such a system would be compact and reliable over a range of environments and AGV applications.