What kind of range does the MIR58X40A IR sensor have?
The Mekatronix MIR58X40A IR sensor can measure about one foot starting from 4 inches to about 14 inches away (with about 5-bits precision, i.e., 10/32 of an inch resolution.) from the IR detector. If you increase the IR emitter power, the differential distance is still a foot. It just that the foot you measure is further out from the robot. For example, with twice as much IR emitted power, the robot measures from about 8 inches to 20 inches, etc. You can get better precision by lensing the IR emitters and the IR detectors. They become very directional, however. Using a triangulation scheme you can get as little as 3-6% error for the same distance range. This takes some DSP stuff however. To be able to measure distances, the sensor should never get closer than 4 inches. You can range from a foot out to about 3 feet with the special circuit Mekatronix developed for the TALRIK II robot.
