Calibrate the infrared sensors, so they can work within different light conditions

[jlrandulfe]

This calibration should be performed at the beginning of the execution. In the future, it is interesting to evaluate if it is desirable to do this calibration after certain conditions are met.

[jlrandulfe]

Proposal for doing the calibration of the sensors:

• At the beginning of the execution, the vehicle can do a 360 degrees turn
• The value of the sensors during this turn will be recorded
• The obtained values should be clearly split in two different regions
• After this, an statistical method shall be applied to the obtained values, in order to define the boundaries of each of the two regions (corresponding to black or white floor)
• From now on, the sensor values will be able to be mapped to boolean values, depending if they are over a black surface or a white one.

[jlrandulfe]

Regarding the classification during the calibration, the k-means algorithm may be used. It is a simple algorithm for clustering N data in a set of groups (In our case, it would be 2 groups and the data would be the sensor inputs during the 360º turn).

An easy explanation of the algorithm can be obtained here