Re: [mowbot] How can you be so patient?

Dave Everett (deverett nospam at vir.idx.com.au)
Tue, 04 Feb 1997 17:01:40 +1100

KEN_REED nospam at hp-boise-om2.om.hp.com wrote:
>
> Just clued into one thing you said. You are going to wait to
> test/continue development on your ultasonic grass detector till you
> get a mobile base made? How can you be so patient. Speaking only for
> myself, 5 minutes after I got good scope readings from the thing, I'd
> have logged the reflectivity of the wall, my foot, snow, grass, the
> dog, concrete, the cat, the car, gravel, sticks, roots, the flower
> bed, and everything else in sight.

Hehe :-D As a matter of fact I went mad with the original version. The
original one was driven by a micro. The micro provided a 40khz signal to
drive the ultrasonic transmitters and receive the reflected signal (I
had four pairs spaced about a wheeled platform) into the Analog to
digital converter. THe reflected signal was then sent via RS232 as a
pair of ascii characters (hex). I used the terminal program Lync to log
the data on my laptop. I could capture the output and then export it
into excel on my main computer.

I logged a lot of data, but in the end it's hard to make anything
meaningful out of it. Looking at data logged temporally is always very
subjective. The data also embodies situatedness that is hard to
represent (since it is the data really). Anyway the problem of what to
do with the data was solved when my Vesa IDE card took out both my hard
drives :-(

I've determined that the only true test of the sensors is a full
realworld test where they control the navigation of a motorised
platform. That's how I'm able to remain patient :-)

> I don't know whether to be impressed with your restraint or what?

I would encourage you to be impressed <G>

Dave Everett.