A Hybrid Visualization of the Environment using Smart Ultrasound-based Sensor Arrays
This paper presents the work in progress on the design and testing of a distributed ultrasound-based sensory system for hybrid 1D and 2D environment visualisation. Many common sensors used in robotics, such as infrared and ultrasonic sensors, cameras and lasers mainly focus on quantifying distances and shapes, while rarely have the ability to differentiate among different sensed surfaces/materials. We propose an inexpensive prototype sensory system based on popular ultrasonic sensors which uses ultrasonic reflections to determine the acoustic reflection coefficients. This additional feature allows differentiating among sensed objects. Moreover, the developed ultrasonic cells are equipped with a microcontroller for basic signal processing and a communication link for integration into a sensor network. In this paper, we discuss the possibility of fusing obtained sensor array data and laser measurements.