Can Sphero detect objects without bumping into them?

Question

Does Sphero have any sensors that can help it detect obstacles before actually colliding with them? Something like an infrared sensor, or anything that can be used as "eyes" for the Sphero.

One use-case for this is to program Sphero to follow moving objects, or just to avoid collision with other objects.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The list of sensors is on their gitHub page:

• Three axis rotation rate gyro
• Three axis accelerometer
• Approximate ground speed
• Data from radio link
• Battery voltage

So, the answer is no, you can't detect object without Sphero bumping into them.

Answer 2

No. It uses a gyroscope and accelerometer to roughly guess the direction it is going in. Without the use of an IR rensor, or proximity sensor, there is no way to detect what is around it. For that reason, this is merely an expensive, remote control toy.

Answer 3

not sure why the mixed reality software couldn't detect using the iphone camera. 'RoseRolls', a hacked sphero tried to use "infrared photodiodes: to detect obstacles by capturing the reflexions of the IR emmitted by the IrDA. They turned out to be useless because the average power emitted by the IrDA was too low" quoted from http://roserolls.perso.rezel.net/hardware.html