Detecting Flying Object Using UltraSonic Sensor

6 Feb 2016

Two days before I have mentioned that I am working on a research project that involves trash can which detects object throwing at it, I have mentioned this project in the blog comment of Year of the Monkey Badge: Red Dog Day.

After couple of days of my comment I have successfully made the project... for inexpensive components it's really cool research project, I will take this basic concept to new level for various projects involving robotics. Here is the video of demonstration.

The HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor and Tower Pro SG9 micro servo are used to create this project, I have use Arduino to control the sensor and servo.

5V VCC from Arduino power the HC-SR04

I have used external power source to power-up Tower Pro SG9 micro servo with 5V regulator.

The HC-SR04 is place 30cm away in front of the trash can and it is angled in 60 degree to detect flying object in the distance of 70cm or less, The ultrasonic sensor code placed in the loop of 10ms so it detects object every 10ms, once the object detected in the air the servo positioned itself to 90 degree(open trash can) and start the counter to 100 in 10ms loop of code, so it's 10x100=1000(1 second), if the counter reached 100 then servo resets itself to 0 degree(close trash can).

I am going to use this base concept to robotic projects, maybe camera mounted in robotic arm with ultrasonic sensor and detect flying objects for snaps, useful in sport events, wild life photography etc, possibilities are endless...

This is started as fun project and getting serious to new level of possibilities, hope I get needed fund and research more on this robotic projects.