What are the Types of Distance Sensor?

A distance sensor is a sensor that uses ultrasonic waves or lasers to measure the distance of an object. It is mainly used to measure the time-varying law of the position of a moving object. It can be used to complete a variety of kinematics and dynamics measurements. A device that measures the distance displacement from the sensor to the object by detecting the amount of physical change of the object using various elements, and converting the amount of change into distance.

What are the types of distance sensor?

Laser Distance Sensor

Laser distance sensor is one of the earliest applications of lasers. This is because the laser has many advantages such as strong directionality, high brightness, and good monochromaticity. The basic principle of using laser transit time to measure distance is to determine the target distance by measuring the time it takes for the laser to travel to and from the target. Although transit time laser ranging is simple in principle and simple in structure, it was mainly used in military and scientific research in the past, but it is rare in industrial automation. Laser distance sensors are mostly used in aircraft flight height determination, protection of hydroforming dies, and positioning of two-axle cranes.

Ultrasonic Distance Sensor

Ultrasonic distance sensors are sensors developed using the characteristics of ultrasonic waves. Ultrasonic is a kind of mechanical wave whose vibration frequency is higher than that of sound wave. It is generated by the vibration of the transducer chip under the excitation of voltage. It has high frequency, short wavelength, small diffraction phenomenon, especially good directionality and can be directed as a ray. It is widely used in industry, national defense, biomedicine and so on.

Infrared Distance Sensor

The infrared distance sensor calculates the distance to the object by emitting a very short light pulse and measuring the time from when the light pulse is emitted to when it is reflected back by the object. The infrared distance sensor has a pair of infrared signal transmitting and receiving diodes. The transmitting tube emits infrared signals of a specific frequency, and the receiving tube receives the infrared signals of this frequency. When the infrared detection direction encounters obstacles, the infrared signals are reflected back and received. After receiving the tube, after processing, it is returned to the robot host through the digital sensor interface, and the robot can use the infrared return signal to identify changes in the surrounding environment.