Odometry Sensor

Home made optical encoder odometry sensor.

I want to improve the dead reckoning ability of my robot and I intended to build my own odometry sensor for this. A rotary encoder seemed simplest and i bought a IR-cheap sensor for the purpose.

The sensor has been tuned so it senses the relative color of the backside of the wheel and I drew a black and white circle encoder for the backsides of the wheel.

Unfortunately I get very bad results. The sensor is not really intended for this. I have adjusted it so its very sensitive to the black and white color changes but I guess the motors interfere with the measurements.

I think I'm going to buy a better sensor and perhaps new motors.

I also found this resource giving a good overview of odometry sensors.