A smart sonar object recognition system for robots

Abstract

The authors describe an acoustic object identification system for use on industrial robots. The object recognition is based on comparing an object's acoustic fingerprint with those of known objects. Particular aspects discussed are how to distinguish the different objects which have the same area of reflection and how to decrease the position sensitivity. The system uses three piezoelectric transducers. The centre one acts as a receiver and the other two as transmitters, aligned symmetrically on both sides of the receiver. Some data processing methods are introduced to improve the recognition ability for similarly shaped objects.