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As you're asking for suggestions, here is one :

For an idea (not yet a project) of mine, I'm looking for a distance sensor that could give a reading from 5 to 200cm at a resolution of about 1cm and most of all, use the least possible amount of power.

If anyone has recommandations, I can start another thread, but if a manufacturer wants to send a few samples for testing, I'd be glad to test one of them

Just a couple of updates. Apparantly I got two different Freescale part numbers mixed up, which to you means an extra RoadTest very soon

And the Analog Devices part is actually  SOT89 RF IF

Hi Olivier...let me work on that. I know one sensor manufacturer
that is desperate to be involved in RoadTest, but don't really do dev
kits as such.

Thanks, very appreciated. I have quite loose requirements though, so if you want me to discuss them, I can start a new thread in the discussions here or in the projects group you mentioned earlier

Well, ok, here is a short description of what I would need.

The use would be for a situation where I need to mesure the distance from the sensor of an object moving toward or away from it without noticeable lateral movement (and I don't want to measure it anyway). The object is always different but all possible combinations are showing an almost flat square surface of 20 centimers side and cannot be tempered with so the sensor has to work on its own.

With this measurement, I want to give feedback (visual, audible, to a supervisory system...) of that distance considering that anything closer than 5 centimeter is considered "too close" and anything farther than 200cm (approximately) is considered "too far".

I don't need great precision, and if I was to use an ADC for reading the analog value, 8 bit would be enough giving me a resolution of roughly 1cm. Note that I would prefer a linear sensor but it doesn't have to be. For instance, it could be that the greatest precision is obtainable between 5 and 100cm (80% of values for instance) and less precise farther than 100cm. I would need however to distinguish between the "too close" and "too far" states.

As the system will have to run on batteries in most installations, I would like it to consume as little energy as possible with the possible help of microcontroller turning it on and off on a regular basis. Having a microcontroller on the board is almost granted for the whole system to work, so it should not be a problem to add the management of the sensor.

For this kind situation, I know of laser, infrared and ultrasonic sensors but I'm not sure what would be best suited considering the "low current" requirement. Nor do I know if there is a better kind of sensor.

So if anything comes to mind to anyone, please do not hesitate to point me in the right direction.

Regards

Olivier

Hey Olivier,

I am working on this at the moment. I have an idea I'm puting to our sensor guys, and if they go for it, you should hear something soon,

Ally