Simultaneous and Coded Driving System of Ultrasonic Sensor Array for Object Recognition in Autonomous Mobile Robots

Ultrasonic sensors are widely used in mobile robot applications to recognize external environments, because they are cheap, easy to use, and robust under varying lighting conditions. In most cases, a single ultrasonic sensor is used to measure the distance to an object based on time-of-flight (TOF) information, whereas multiple sensors are used to recognize the shape of an object, such as a corner, plane, or edge. However, the conventional sequential driving technique involves a long measurement time. This problem can be resolved by pulse coding ultrasonic signals, which allows multi-sensors to be fired simultaneously and adjacent objects to be distinguished. Accordingly, the current presents a new simultaneous coded driving system for an ultrasonic sensor array for object recognition in autonomous mobile robots. The proposed system is designed and implemented using a DSP and FPGA. A micro-controller board is made using a DSP, Polaroid 6500 ranging modules are modified for firing the coded signals, and a 5-channel coded signal generating board is made using a FPGA. To verify the proposed method, experiments were conducted in an environment with overlapping signals, and the flight distances for each sensor were obtained from the received overlapping signals using correlations and conversion to a bipolar PCM-NRZ signal.