Posted 19 May 2017

While working with John Jenkins on the modulated IR beam idea, I decided to run some tests with the current 4-detector design, to see how the new sunshade with center divider was affected by  ambient IR on a bright sunny day.  So, I disabled Wall-E2’s motors and then placed it at several different critical spots in the entry hallway.  At each location I used my little IR test generator to mark the beginning and the end of the test for that location, and then moved on to the  next one.  The locations are shown in the following photos, in the order that the tests were run.

Position 1: Near where Wall-E2 transitions from wall-tracking to IR beam homing

Position 2: This is where Wall-E2 has been winding up when it homes on the outside sunlight instead of the IR beam

Position 3: Here Wall-E2 should be firmly fixated on the IR beam

These results, combined with my earlier IR response tests with a single phototransistor are encouraging, because it is clear that at least in this case, Wall-E2 should have no difficulty discriminating between the ambient IR and the charging station IR beam.

I ran some homing tests, which Wall-E2 handled with ease; unfortunately God had already turned the lights out on this side of the world, so the tests weren’t in the presence of daylight IR interference.  I’ll do some more real-world discrimination testing tomorrow, and  I am  hopeful that the new sunshade-with-divider version will be successful, at least for this part of the house.

Stay tuned,

Frank