I am interested in building a distance meter that interfaces through a laptop or computer, can measure distance from a few inches out to about 4 or 5 feet with a +-0.5% accuracy, fairly repeatable, and can measure off wood, metal, plastic and concrete. I was reading through the forums for the available technology and it looks like ultrasonic (ex. devantech ultrasonic range finder) and infrared (ex. Sharp) sensors are the two options. The problem with those two technologies was the accuracy was not up to spec.
Just doing a search for distance meters on the web I found the following items:
**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**
Both of these are closer to my required accuracy spec. What kind of sensors are these two items using, is the technolgy commercially available, and is it possible to build a rudimentary bench test setup for proof of concept? I don't necessarily want the cheapest option so don't worry about money. It would be nice to find something like the Phidget line that interfaces with the computer easily and has its own API but that is not required. Any information anyone could profide would be helpful.
Thanks
Just doing a search for distance meters on the web I found the following items:
**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**
Both of these are closer to my required accuracy spec. What kind of sensors are these two items using, is the technolgy commercially available, and is it possible to build a rudimentary bench test setup for proof of concept? I don't necessarily want the cheapest option so don't worry about money. It would be nice to find something like the Phidget line that interfaces with the computer easily and has its own API but that is not required. Any information anyone could profide would be helpful.
Thanks