Hi Brains Trust
Just trying to get ideas currently to try out
I run in a pulling tractor club and we are thinking of upgrading our measuring distance equipment, ideally what we would like is if it could be fully automated and projected onto a hire display screen.
0m – 150m, Things can be mounted to the sled and down the track, can’t mount to the tractor, very harsh and dusty environment
Appreciate any input
Comments
The closest I can think of that will handle some relative movement is a laser tracker. You would have a fixed gimbal head at the end of the track and mount the target (usually a reflector with 3 orthogonal mirrors ‘corner cube’). The mirrors in the target become a retro-reflector to redirect the laser back to the gimbal head for reading. This is a fairly high precision ‘metrology’ solution.
This isn’t a cheap solution and I expect the tracker is needed because you can’t guarantee only a single axis of motion of the sled. I also am not familiar with how well they function in an outdoor environment, let alone a dusty one.
You may be able to create a home-grown solution using a high resolution camera and a 2D barcode target.
Last idea is to have an encoder on a measuring wheel with some wireless communication that mounts to the sled.
Do a test/experiment with survey equipment, hire a reputable company to do the technical connections