A Study on the Object Angle Inference in a Sonar Sensor Array System

초음파센서 배열 시스템에서 물체의 각도 추론에 관한 연구

Ultrasonic sensors are becoming indispensable components in every sector of automation equipments due to many advantages. But the main purposes of the noncontact sensing device are rather narrowly confined within object detection and distance measurement. To widen the realm of the applications to object recognition, ultrasonic sensors need to improve the recognition resolution to a certain amount. To resolve the problem of spatial resolution restriction, an increased number of the sensors in the forms of a linear array or 2-dimensional array of the sensor has been used. Also better resolution has been obtained by shifting the array in several steps using mechanical actuators. For an object recognition using ultrasonic sensors, measurements of distance, shift, oblique angle in certain ranges should be obtained. But a little attention has been paid to the measurement of angles. In this paper we propose a practical method for an object angular value detection in addition to distance measurement in ultrasonic sensor array system with little additional hardware burden. Using the established measurement look-up table for the variations of distance, shift, angle and transmitter voltages for each sensor characteristics, a set of different return echo signals for adjacent receivers are processed to provide enhanced angular value reading for an object.