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From: smith@sndpit.enet.dec.com (Willie Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Looking for information about cheap gyroscope
Message-ID: <1293@sousa.ltn.dec.com>
Date: 10 Jun 91 16:48:44 GMT
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 20


In article <00--VV-@engin.umich.edu>, feng@caen.engin.umich.edu (Liqiang Feng) writes...
>Hi, I am looking for a device that will give me the orientation measurement 
>of a mobile robot. Of course, the first thing comes into mind is the compass, 
>however, the compass suffers from the the effects of external magnetic 
>field and acceleration.
A Gyro would probably be pretty expensive, why not use a Flux Gate compass?
Radio-Electronics had an article on interfacing the Radio Shack model about 
a year ago, or I've heard you can get them with RS-232 output from marine 
supply places for a few (three?) hundred bucks.  You still have to worry 
about external field, but if you mount the sensor away from large pieces 
of metal and/or high-current wires, you should be OK.  You don't have to 
worry about accelleration at all, as there are no moving parts (the meter 
movement doesn't count), and the best part is it only costs about $50 plus
a couple of A/D channels and a little processing time.

Willie Smith
smith@sndpit.enet.dec.com
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