I am looking for a suitable sensor to measure the distance to one or more thin Aluminium wires from a frame. The frame is perpendicular to the wires.
The wires have a diameter of 1mm, the distance is about 30 - 50 cm. Position in both axes needs to be measured. Accuracy about +- 2 cm. See figure.
The wires are in a thick layer of vegetation (leafs), so no optical methods come in question.
Any ideas?
Hello Sir,
What kind of aluminium wires are these ?. What are the electrical connections to them ?. How long are they ?
Best Regards,
Henri.
Hello,
wire diameter is about 1mm, there is no electrical connection to the wires. The wires are grounded. Length about 330 m.
Best regards
Martin
Hi Martin! Sounds like quite a challenge. I guess you need to use some method that makes use of the different density between the wires and the vegetation.
It depends a little also what the frame is made of. You might be able to use some sort of magnetic system such as used in a "stud finder" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stud_finder
Or perhaps something along the lines of an ultrasonic parking sensor. Though I think there would be very considerable work in tuning such a device to work for your application.
Maybe you could just talk nicely to your nearest hospital or veterinary and get then to take an few X-ray photos of it?
Hello,
thanks for all the ideas so far, but unfortunately I think they can´t be used.
Let me add some more details about the application.
It is an agriculture application. I was asked by a farmer to find out if it is even doable. He wants to automate his vineyards.
The "frame" is in fact a cutter to cut vine to size, towed by a tractor. Similar to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXKH6O1S6As
The frame is from steel. The goal is to automatically avoid cutting into the wire and frames holding them and also not to cut closer that about 30 - 50 cm from the wires.
The wire is in most cases completely hidden by the plants. (so no optics)
Placing anything on the vineyard is out of question. One "wire" line is about 330 m long, but there are about 300 of them on 1 vineyard only. So it is about 100 km long. And the guy has 10 of them, so about 1000 km of distance to cover. Anything added to the vineyard simply is not economically an option. The sensor has to be mounted on the tractor.
I am starting to doubt that a economical solution currently exists with available technology. I am thinking about an FMCW radar, but the 1mm resolution would probably require frequencies about 600 GHz, and this in turn would most likely be absorbed by the leafs.
No, just to help the operator to focus on driving .
It should not be totally automated
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