Sonar or Optical

[pete2009]

Simple question. Which is a more reliable detector. Which one has a higher and less error prone cycle rate?

I want to use in three situations.

1) Wall or object detection (medium distance), rotating on top of robot.
2) Drop off dector (short distance) o see if I'm falling off a mountain or my staircase.
3) Far object predictability (long distance) to make measurements of objects far away, used in conjunction with the medium range to plan a better path.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

[jamort]

need to know more details about what your trying to do long and short isnt cutting it cause long could be a foot or it could be 10 feet... or it couble be a float point variable....
just about anything you get beside the laser range detectors which cost in the thousands of dollars are going to have there disadvantages....

[Joker94]

it's a bt of give and takeit is hard to pin point one as i don't know

give jamrot and me some details and we'll give you some more detail

[airman00]

http://www.societyofrobots.com/member_tutorials/node/71

[pete2009]

Perfect .. thanks airman.
It shed a lot of light on the situation