IR tracking system attached to UAV (flying robot)

[mrmrzamany]

Hello,

I have a project and i want your opinion/advice:
My project is : I'll create an IR beacon consists of IR emitters ( the beacon will be like a half ball so it can radiaties everywhere in the room) , I'll attach 4 IR receivers in the UAV( flying object). The job of this UAV is to locate/find the IR beacon that is in the ground (this can be done by analysing the signal received by one of the receiver in the UAV)
My question is: is that possible ??
this is the IR receiver that I want to use http://www.vishay.com/docs/82458/tssp40.pdf
and this is the IR transmitters that I'll form a beacon from http://www.vishay.com/docs/81009/tsal6100.pdf

Am I in the right direction?
Are the chosen IR receiver and emitter are good for this idea ?
any suggestion please 

[uncle_bob]

Hi

The detectors you show are wide angle detectors. an array of six of them will give you above / below/ left /right / front back. Once you get inside a 90 degree arc, they stop discriminating. That is going to make finding anything quite difficult. I'm sitting in a room right now. Telling me that an object is on the wall to my left is fine. It does not help me much in finding that object since it could be anywhere in a 5M x 5M square. I don't really know where to go to track it down ... If there are multiple emitters in the room, figuring out which one is which adds even more difficulty to the problem.

Bob

[mrmrzamany]

Hi

The detectors you show are wide angle detectors. an array of six of them will give you above / below/ left /right / front back. Once you get inside a 90 degree arc, they stop discriminating. That is going to make finding anything quite difficult. I'm sitting in a room right now. Telling me that an object is on the wall to my left is fine. It does not help me much in finding that object since it could be anywhere in a 5M x 5M square. I don't really know where to go to track it down ... If there are multiple emitters in the room, figuring out which one is which adds even more difficulty to the problem.

Bob

Hello,
knowing the direction is fine, how about the receiver? is it good enough to detect the IR emitter when its on the flying UAV??, can I use triangulation to know the exact location or even the direction ?

regrading the multiple emitters, can I just place two inside the room ( one in each side) and identify to location of moth emitters ?

[zapta]

For triangulation you need angles but do those sensors give you angles or just intensities?  If you can rotate the drone or the sensors you can use it to derive angles, e.g the angle of max  intensity.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

The detectors you show are wide angle detectors. an array of six of them will give you above / below/ left /right / front back. Once you get inside a 90 degree arc, they stop discriminating. That is going to make finding anything quite difficult. I'm sitting in a room right now. Telling me that an object is on the wall to my left is fine. It does not help me much in finding that object since it could be anywhere in a 5M x 5M square. I don't really know where to go to track it down ... If there are multiple emitters in the room, figuring out which one is which adds even more difficulty to the problem.

Bob

Hello,
knowing the direction is fine, how about the receiver? is it good enough to detect the IR emitter when its on the flying UAV??, can I use triangulation to know the exact location or even the direction ?

regrading the multiple emitters, can I just place two inside the room ( one in each side) and identify to location of moth emitters ?

Hi

The sensors you have linked to are totally non-specific. They are wide range / no angle sensors. To find a target with one in this room:

      Fly within 6" of all the surfaces at 6" spacing.

      Log all the intensity data and location information

      Dump it into a PC

      Calculate likely targets

      Go back and re-fly the targets at a closer range and finer resolution.

That does not seem like a very efficient way to do it compared to:

     Fire up a camera

     Take a picture in each of 6 directions

     Shift eight feet

     Repeat the pictures

     Do the analysis

     Go to the targets.

There are some in-between approaches with narrow beam (10 degree) sensors as well.

Bob