Capability:Time-of-Flight Sensing
| Time-of-Flight Sensing | |
|---|---|
| Type | Sensing |
| Measures/Controls | Distance to objects (typically 30mm to 4000mm depending on sensor) |
| Common Hardware | VL53L0X (up to 2m), VL53L1X (up to 4m), VL53L5CX (8×8 multizone), STMicroelectronics ToF sensors |
| Enables Activities | Activity:Maze Solving, Activity:Room Mapping, obstacle avoidance, cliff detection |
| Status | Stub - Not yet implemented in BRS robots |
Time-of-Flight Sensing is a sensing capability that measures distance to objects by timing how long light takes to reflect back.
Overview
This is a stub page. This capability is not yet implemented in any BRS robot. This page exists to:
- Document the concept for future implementation
- Invite community members to add it to their robots
- Provide a starting point for hardware selection
What It Measures
Distance to objects (typically 30mm to 4000mm depending on sensor)
Common Hardware
VL53L0X (up to 2m), VL53L1X (up to 4m), VL53L5CX (8×8 multizone), STMicroelectronics ToF sensors
Enables Activities
Adding this capability to your robot would enable:
Technical Considerations
- **Advantages**: Accurate, fast response, immune to ambient light (uses IR)
- **Disadvantages**: Narrow field of view, struggles with dark/absorptive surfaces
- **Typical cost**: $3-8 per sensor
- **Interface**: I²C
- **Accuracy**: ±3% at short range, degrades with distance
- **Update rate**: 10-100 Hz depending on mode
Contributing
Want to add this capability to your robot? Here's how:
- Select appropriate hardware (see "Common Hardware" above)
- Mount the hardware to your robot chassis
- Wire to your microcontroller
- Write driver code or use existing libraries
- Test and calibrate
- Document your implementation
- Update this page with your findings
- Share on Discord
See Also
- Capabilities - All capabilities
- Activities - What this capability enables
- Robotics Ontology - How capabilities fit into BRS knowledge structure