After completing testing for the servo motors, reflectance sensors were the next priority to improve the AEV. The reflectance sensors are used to tell the arduino how far it is traveled by using a unit called a mark, which is 0.4875 inches.Since the code used in the AEV is very distance based rather than time based, the sensors must be functional to ensure the AEV moves and stops at the correct times. The idea was to test if the orientation of the sensor made a difference when calculating the marks. Over a total of 5 trials, the sensors were placed in a random position, on the side of the arm or the top of the arm and the AEV was run for a total of 50 revolutions. The bar graph below shows the trials on the y-axis and the number of marks detected on the x-axis. When comparing the data, the clear winner is when the sensors are placed on the side of the arm across all trials. When placed on the side, the sensors placed on the side read the most amount of marks on 4/5 trials.
Figure 3 (above)
Figure 4 (above)