Teh0therside

I have not designed any circuits for quite a while, but would like to construct a circuit that could steer a two motor robot towards a heat source for use in a project. I have looked at the Mousebot but am unsure as to how I could correctly convert it to what I need. If anyone knows of any projects or circuits that I could use as a model for my device, I would be greatly appreciative. Thank you.

The Mad Professor

essentialy it's the same technique used to steer a bot towards a light source

the difference being instead of using phototransitors , Pyrolectric senors are used
as these respond to changes in the infra red spectrum and commonly used as intruder detectors for burglar alarms and security lights.

the key word is "change" for the bot to track an IR source then either the source must flash or the infra red input to the sensor has to be passed through a shutter mechanism.
the back of the shutter acting as a "cold" reference so when it opens the sensor will respond to anything that is hot

after that you are into the realm of sweeping the sensors from side to side or using rotating mirrors , cutaway drawings of heat seeking missiles and imaging systems were availible on the web and may still be found buried in the patents website.

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HarveyH42

A PIR sensor, like in motion detectors. But I think they only look for changes. Probably a sensor similar somewhere. Guessing a PIR sensor on a moving bot might still work though.

dknguyen

Thermopiles might be better than pyroelectrics. THey measure the absolute temperature of the source rather than the rate of change. A moving robot with many heat sources around it might get confused due to the relative motion since a stationary heat source will be seen as moving when the bot moves unless you take further measures (like making the sensors vibrate onboard to simulate the desired motion).

I believe human eyes are like this. Human eyes are always rapidly jittering moving to simulate the relative motion needed for the eye to see an object, whether it is moving or not.

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Centretek

The simple way is to have 2 IR sensors. The robot(?) always turns toward the sensor with the highest signal and steers straight when both signal strengths are the same.

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