Robotics & Home Appliance
A floor-cleaning robot has to tell carpet from tile before it drives onto it, in a housing with no room to spare.
Optical floor sensing is defeated by dark and glossy surfaces; a contact probe wears. A reflection-type ultrasonic transducer reads the change in frequency and amplitude of the returning wave and separates materials without touching them - which is exactly how our material recognition family is used for sweeping robots.
The three configurations exist because the mounting constraint differs more than the sensing does. Sensor 1 ships on an unterminated lead, sensor 2 on a pre-terminated twisted harness that drops onto a board header, and sensor 3 in a short body with a centre-exit lead for shallow bosses.
Sensors used in robotics & home appliance
Ultrasonic Material Recognition Sensor 1
A reflection-type ultrasonic transducer that reads back the change in frequency and amplitude of the returned wave, so metal, plastic and wood separate cleanly without any contact with the target.
View specifications →
Ultrasonic Material Recognition Sensor 2
The same reflection-type sensing element supplied on a twisted, colour-coded harness with a pitch connector already fitted, so it drops straight onto a board-level mating header.
View specifications →
Ultrasonic Material Recognition Sensor 3
A short-body reflection transducer with a fine centre-exit lead and micro connector, so it seats in a shallow boss and routes straight back to the board.
View specifications →Three answers that get you a real recommendation
- Which two surfaces do you need to separate, and at what stand-off?
- How deep is the mounting boss, and does the cable have to move with a chassis?
- Do you want the harness terminated to your own mating connector?
Other industries
Building something that is not on this list? The sensing problem usually maps onto one of them - send it over.
Talk it through with the people who build the device
Signal analysis and failure handling sit in the same team as design and material development, so a technical question gets a technical answer.