I'm a junior in Electrical Engineering and concurrent with my senior year I need to do a project to be presented at the end of the year.
what I was thinking is to make a laser designation circuit like you see in the movies, ie I could aim a laser diode at a surface, and then I'd have a photodiode array to "see" the laser spot.
the first idea was a robot to shoot ping-pong balls at a target, and eventually I started thinking it would be cool to have it use laser designated targeting. well now I'm concentrating on the laser designation portion, and once I get a handle on that I will determine how I use it.
one idea that refuses to leave my head is to make a glider, to which I would attach my circuit, so that the circuitry could guide the glider to the target. I figured it shouldn't be too much harder to move rudders and fins than it would be to move legs (although wheels might be easier if I choose a land-bound vehicle)
I was wondering about laser power, I have some cheapo-Ebay laser pointers that are <1mw, and 630-680nm wavelength. I was wondering if I'll need a more powerful laser...
a second question would be about filtering. I've found some photodiode arrays on digikey that filter to a certain wavelength, would it be as simple as getting one of these and a matched laser diode?
if this is the case I'm definitely going to need to do some more work for it to be a suitable project, (which makes me want to start researching gliders )
Sorry to be so long-winded, I'm just getting a little excited :wink:
what I was thinking is to make a laser designation circuit like you see in the movies, ie I could aim a laser diode at a surface, and then I'd have a photodiode array to "see" the laser spot.
the first idea was a robot to shoot ping-pong balls at a target, and eventually I started thinking it would be cool to have it use laser designated targeting. well now I'm concentrating on the laser designation portion, and once I get a handle on that I will determine how I use it.
one idea that refuses to leave my head is to make a glider, to which I would attach my circuit, so that the circuitry could guide the glider to the target. I figured it shouldn't be too much harder to move rudders and fins than it would be to move legs (although wheels might be easier if I choose a land-bound vehicle)
I was wondering about laser power, I have some cheapo-Ebay laser pointers that are <1mw, and 630-680nm wavelength. I was wondering if I'll need a more powerful laser...
a second question would be about filtering. I've found some photodiode arrays on digikey that filter to a certain wavelength, would it be as simple as getting one of these and a matched laser diode?
if this is the case I'm definitely going to need to do some more work for it to be a suitable project, (which makes me want to start researching gliders )
Sorry to be so long-winded, I'm just getting a little excited :wink: