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Speed measurment — Parallax Forums

Speed measurment

ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
edited 2004-04-11 05:58 in General Discussion
Can ultrasonic transducers be used to determine the speed of a object
or vehicle?

Basically send out a pulse or string of pulses and recieve back the
doppler shifted pulses and then determine the difference in
frequency.

What kind of range can I expect from this type of technology?

I do have a July 1995 issue of Popular Electronics that has a
schematic and layout for a RF based radar gun like the police use
except in the x band. I could hack into this circuit and use a stamp
but I wanted to keep it simple, somewhat cheap and keep the FCC away.

The range of measurment would be from .5 to 25 MPH, distance to the
ground would be 3 to 5 feet, and the the median used to bounce back a
signal would be a plowed field with corn stalks and leaves flapping
in the breeze, that would be worst case.

I could filter out flapping leaves with a band pass filter for the
known measuremnt range.

Would this work?

Jason

Comments

  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-03-31 00:43
    you'd have to add some super het/phase detectors....not on their own as the
    SRF04 modules.

    BUT, you could do a number of quick pulses and collect some distances then
    do a calculation of the distance changes over the time period.


    Original Message
    From: "jbirnsch" <jbirnsch@v...>
    To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
    Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 6:40 PM
    Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Speed measurment


    > Can ultrasonic transducers be used to determine the speed of a object
    > or vehicle?
    >
    > Basically send out a pulse or string of pulses and recieve back the
    > doppler shifted pulses and then determine the difference in
    > frequency.
    >
    > What kind of range can I expect from this type of technology?
    >
    > I do have a July 1995 issue of Popular Electronics that has a
    > schematic and layout for a RF based radar gun like the police use
    > except in the x band. I could hack into this circuit and use a stamp
    > but I wanted to keep it simple, somewhat cheap and keep the FCC away.
    >
    > The range of measurment would be from .5 to 25 MPH, distance to the
    > ground would be 3 to 5 feet, and the the median used to bounce back a
    > signal would be a plowed field with corn stalks and leaves flapping
    > in the breeze, that would be worst case.
    >
    > I could filter out flapping leaves with a band pass filter for the
    > known measuremnt range.
    >
    > Would this work?
    >
    > Jason
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
    > basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
    > from the same email address that you subscribed. Text in the Subject and
    Body of the message will be ignored.
    >
    > Yahoo! Groups Links
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-03-31 01:56
    Found some of my answers doing a google search:

    http://cigr-ejournal.tamu.edu/Submissions/PM%2001%20007.pdf

    Jason



    --- In basicstamps@yahoogroups.com, "jbirnsch" <jbirnsch@v...> wrote:
    > Can ultrasonic transducers be used to determine the speed of a
    object
    > or vehicle?
    >
    > Basically send out a pulse or string of pulses and recieve back the
    > doppler shifted pulses and then determine the difference in
    > frequency.
    >
    > What kind of range can I expect from this type of technology?
    >
    > I do have a July 1995 issue of Popular Electronics that has a
    > schematic and layout for a RF based radar gun like the police use
    > except in the x band. I could hack into this circuit and use a
    stamp
    > but I wanted to keep it simple, somewhat cheap and keep the FCC
    away.
    >
    > The range of measurment would be from .5 to 25 MPH, distance to the
    > ground would be 3 to 5 feet, and the the median used to bounce back
    a
    > signal would be a plowed field with corn stalks and leaves flapping
    > in the breeze, that would be worst case.
    >
    > I could filter out flapping leaves with a band pass filter for the
    > known measuremnt range.
    >
    > Would this work?
    >
    > Jason
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-03-31 19:26
    I have built, and have purchased, X band radars.

    In simple words, they have a gate that is wide enough to collect 1
    cycle/Hertz for each mile of hour of doppler speed sensed. (based upon the
    formula and frequency of operation). This is about 32.xx Hertz per mile of
    hour radial speed, at 10.525 GHz (as I remember). This gives the usual +/-
    1 mph accuracy<G>. This makes a phase detector not necessary, though in
    honesty, the mixer could still be considered one<G>.

    They use a homodyne transceiver, which means that a portion of the
    transmitted signal is sampled back and used for the local oscillator
    frequency. Any drift in the Gunn diode circuit is small enough to not
    affect accuracy (after warm up time), and slow enough to not affect the
    transmitted signal/lo relationship.

    It's simple to build. However, if you are measuring a complex object, or an
    object in a complex area of reflections, hold on to your hats. The police
    units which I have seen (I have a manual and schematic) look for 5
    consecutive counts of the same number. Then this is "declared" to be a
    valid speed. So far, I have found this to be the case, in that the only
    times that I have seen the beast lie was in extremely heavy traffic,
    starting off at a green light, and with big trucks nearby.

    If you are using standard ultrasonic transducers, circuits using them for
    other things should give you an idea of range. I think that I remember 20'
    being max for unaided ones. But you could put one up on a reflector, like a
    feedhorn, and use it like radar<G>.

    Original Message
    From: SB [noparse]/noparse]mailto:[url=http://forums.parallaxinc.com/group/basicstamps/post?postID=qIl14gAO9w13V1yD_Uj8mGaEWDZM69DWypcMpp-vLPlPZYIwUqHiz42yZfcyAnhP8-6uZN1SrMmpgC_VjJen]steve.brady@r...[/url
    Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 6:43 PM
    To: basicstamps@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: Re: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Speed measurment


    you'd have to add some super het/phase detectors....not on their own as the
    SRF04 modules.

    BUT, you could do a number of quick pulses and collect some distances then
    do a calculation of the distance changes over the time period.


    Original Message
    From: "jbirnsch" <jbirnsch@v...>
    To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
    Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 6:40 PM
    Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Speed measurment


    > Can ultrasonic transducers be used to determine the speed of a object
    > or vehicle?
    >
    > Basically send out a pulse or string of pulses and recieve back the
    > doppler shifted pulses and then determine the difference in frequency.
    >
    > What kind of range can I expect from this type of technology?
    >
    > I do have a July 1995 issue of Popular Electronics that has a
    > schematic and layout for a RF based radar gun like the police use
    > except in the x band. I could hack into this circuit and use a stamp
    > but I wanted to keep it simple, somewhat cheap and keep the FCC away.
    >
    > The range of measurment would be from .5 to 25 MPH, distance to the
    > ground would be 3 to 5 feet, and the the median used to bounce back a
    > signal would be a plowed field with corn stalks and leaves flapping in
    > the breeze, that would be worst case.
    >
    > I could filter out flapping leaves with a band pass filter for the
    > known measuremnt range.
    >
    > Would this work?
    >
    > Jason
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
    > basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
    > from the same email address that you subscribed. Text in the Subject
    > and
    Body of the message will be ignored.
    >
    > Yahoo! Groups Links
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >



    To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
    basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
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  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-04-11 05:58
    If you need to measure vehicle speed you can use the VSS (vehicle speed sender)
    signal from the vehicle then use a basic distance over time to calculate speed.
    For an example most Fords use 8000 pulses per mile (GM and Chryslers use 4000
    pluses per mile you can check with your local dealer for more info) so if the
    vehicle is traveling at 60 mph the VSS is generating 133.3333 pulses per second
    (if my math is correct) this is well within the range of the stamps.



    Brian


    jbirnsch <jbirnsch@v...> wrote:Found some of my answers doing a google
    search:

    http://cigr-ejournal.tamu.edu/Submissions/PM%2001%20007.pdf

    Jason



    --- In basicstamps@yahoogroups.com, "jbirnsch" wrote:
    > Can ultrasonic transducers be used to determine the speed of a
    object
    > or vehicle?
    >
    > Basically send out a pulse or string of pulses and recieve back the
    > doppler shifted pulses and then determine the difference in
    > frequency.
    >
    > What kind of range can I expect from this type of technology?
    >
    > I do have a July 1995 issue of Popular Electronics that has a
    > schematic and layout for a RF based radar gun like the police use
    > except in the x band. I could hack into this circuit and use a
    stamp
    > but I wanted to keep it simple, somewhat cheap and keep the FCC
    away.
    >
    > The range of measurment would be from .5 to 25 MPH, distance to the
    > ground would be 3 to 5 feet, and the the median used to bounce back
    a
    > signal would be a plowed field with corn stalks and leaves flapping
    > in the breeze, that would be worst case.
    >
    > I could filter out flapping leaves with a band pass filter for the
    > known measuremnt range.
    >
    > Would this work?
    >
    > Jason



    To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
    basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
    from the same email address that you subscribed. Text in the Subject and Body of
    the message will be ignored.

    Yahoo! Groups Links







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