IR Beam Break sensor

[grcshekar]

I am a college student doing hobby project, I need to design an IR bream break detector which would work with IR Transmitter and IR Receiver to detect beam break between transmitter and receiver in 1 meter range. Can you please suggest components and circuits for same, preferably requiring 5V. The functionality should not get affected in ambient lighting as well. I will be connecting this to Arduino MC

 

[John Canon]

What are your initial ideas?

 

[hevans1944]

The functionality should not get affected in ambient lighting as well.

Ambient light is always something to consider when designing any photo-electric beam-sensing circuit. The first approach to solving this problem is to collimate (make parallel) the beam from source to sensor and then use an aperture, such as a length of opaque tubing at both the source and sensor ends of the beam, to limit the amount of ambient light entering at the sensor end. Even that may not be enough if a bright ambient source (such as the sun) can illuminate the sensor. You might also want to consider using an infrared spectral filter at both ends of the beam. The sensor must also have sufficient dynamic range that it does not saturate under any ambient lighting conditions. For the most efficient beam-break detection system, modulate the source and then synchronously demodulate the signal at the sensor.

There are available infrared transmitter/receiver pairs that use pulse modulation. These are typically used with infrared remote controls and may be an over-engineered solution to your problem. The advantage is they are inexpensive and are easily interfaced to an Arduino.

 

[Bluejets]

Ultra sonic sensor have some obvious advantages over IR, if indeed the scope of the project allows.

 

[grcshekar]

Ambient light is always something to consider when designing any photo-electric beam-sensing circuit. The first approach to solving this problem is to collimate (make parallel) the beam from source to sensor and then use an aperture, such as a length of opaque tubing at both the source and sensor ends of the beam, to limit the amount of ambient light entering at the sensor end. Even that may not be enough if a bright ambient source (such as the sun) can illuminate the sensor. You might also want to consider using an infrared spectral filter at both ends of the beam. The sensor must also have sufficient dynamic range that it does not saturate under any ambient lighting conditions. For the most efficient beam-break detection system, modulate the source and then synchronously demodulate the signal at the sensor.

There are available infrared transmitter/receiver pairs that use pulse modulation. These are typically used with infrared remote controls and may be an over-engineered solution to your problem. The advantage is they are inexpensive and are easily interfaced to an Arduino.

There are available infrared transmitter/receiver pairs
Can you suggest a few

 

[Bluejets]

Ebay, Amazon, Aliexpress, Digikey.....

 

[Martaine2005]

Is this homework?
Post #2 asked for your ideas so far. What research have you done?

starting with “I’m a college student”. “I need to design”. And then ask for a parts list and circuit.
Show us what you have done so far.


Martin

 

[hevans1944]

There are available infrared transmitter/receiver pairs
Can you suggest a few

Of course I could, but wtf would you learn from that? As an alleged "college student" you should have already learned how to perform your own research, either online or at a library with real books. I would make friends with whatever search engine you like best (I use Google a lot, but there are others.) and spend a few hours creating search strings. If you find something interesting, but want to know more about it, send us a link so we can comment.

It was sometime in the previous century that I discovered the IR transmitter/receiver pair at Radio Shack. Actually, I think it was just the receiver. My interest at the time was decoding the pulsed IR signals from a "universal" handheld remote control, the kind used to control televisions and audio receivers among other things. I have accumulated an unsorted collection of these remotes, and was thinking of repurposing one of them to control (for example) room lighting. Some time later that idea was postponed as I decided an RF remote would be more reliable... perhaps a Bluetooth or an X-Bee module interfaced to an Arduino.

Since then we have retired to Florida and our new home uses some sort of wireless remote to control ceiling fans and their associated lights. That probably doesn't help you solve your "beam break" problem, but maybe you could search for garage door obstruction sensors. My Genie garage door opener has a (modulated?) IR transmitter and associated receiver that shines an invisible IR beam across the width of my two-car garage. I have only a vague idea how this actually works because both the transmitter and the receiver are each connected with a single pair of wires to two terminals on the door controller. If I were more interested, I would hook my digital storage oscilloscope across that pair of wires and try to discover what is going on there. But, since it works just fine, I probably won't bother. You can possibly purchase a pair of Genie garage door obstruction sensors, but that means you would have to figure out how Genie makes them work with just a single pair of wires. Do you have the resources to reverse engineer such a pair of sensors?

This IS a hobby forum you have stumbled upon, and @Bluejets and (lately) @danadak often suggest using the parametric search engine available on electronics distributors websites (such as DigiKey) to find specific parts. Of course you have to know what parts to search for. As a hobbyist, we expect you to do some research on your own before we will offer any specific advice. OTOH, if you are just a "drive by" poster looking for a quick answer, please go look somewhere else. Do you have any experience with infrared optics? Most silicon-based photo-detectors will respond to near-infrared, and most IR emitters will work just fine with plastic optics. You may need to shield the receiver with an infrared transparent filter that blocks visible light but passes the infrared beam. I have found most black plastic material (such as a garbage bag) will serve this purpose.

 

[hevans1944]

Welcome to Maker Pro (formerly Electronics Point), @isaashbasett.

BTW, you have responded to a thread that is almost a year old now. The original poster or OP, @grcshekar, posted only twice after joining Maker Pro on June 18, 2022. The OP did not engage in a dialog with others (forum members) who responded to the original post, and the OP has not posted here since June 19, 2022. We call that a "drive by" poster. They contribute nothing to this forum and leave immediately without further comment, whether or not they received any help.

Please don't be a drive-by poster. Find a topic that interests you (or start one of your own) and learn something about it. If you feel you can contribute, please join the dialog. Lurking is okay, but you won't learn much without engaging in a dialog with others here.

Learning, IMHO, should be a life-long endeavor. Too many people today grow up believing that any form of "schooling" is a chore forced on them by parents and government. As soon as those folks "graduate" from whatever school they happen to currently attend, they believe their "school days" are forever behind them. That is not the way human beings are supposed to behave!

Except for those who are handicapped by disease or genetics we learn from the moment of birth until we die. A formal schooling may not be necessary in all societies, but it is always a helpful addition in most circumstances... except, perhaps, when it is used to advance a propaganda agenda. Propaganda is a powerful tool. Formal schooling can help a person to identify and recognize propaganda. Recognition of propaganda, which is necessary for a reasoned and rational response to it, is difficult today.

In the late 1950s I attended high-school in Phoenixville, PA. My favorite course was Civics, taught by a middle-aged gentleman with a horrible case of halitosis. Fortunately, he didn't get in my face too often, but he and I often engaged in classroom discussions about what it means to be a good and productive citizen in the United States of America. Sometimes, between the two of us, we could get the other class attendees to join our discussion. But sadly, much as it is today, most of the "students" thought that Civics was just a course that they were required to take, not a course in which they could learn anything valuable for use in later life. I fear that Civics is not taught in our schools anymore. It was the only class I ever took where the basics of critical thinking, logic, and propaganda techniques were taught and explained. I already knew about such things from schooling at home, personal observation of the world I lived in, and being an Air Force Brat who got to move around the country every two years or so, but it was interesting to observe the student responses that our discussions sometimes elicited.

You may want to compose another post for the Introductions section of the Members area (click on FORUMS in the Maker Pro title bar and screoll down). It helps us respond in a helpful manner if we know where you are located and what topics interest you.

 

[bancroft]

What is the MC used in Arduino?


Most Arduino boards consist of an Atmel 8-bit AVR microcontroller (ATmega8, ATmega168, ATmega328, ATmega1280, or ATmega2560) with varying amounts of flash memory, pins, and features.

 

[Delta Prime]

Thank you, it seems that we need more people like you to manage to learn at least something, because in the past I also used to ask everything and now I understand that I should study a bit, and then ask what I didn't understand.

So...What is it,you just learned?
Edit: doesn't matter we all learn differently.