A robot needs sensors to interact with the world around him. It has to ‘see’ where it’s going and avoid obstacles on the way. Other sensors are use to let the robot ‘feel’ For example: battery power left and it’s acceleration.
There are a lot of different sensors available and you have to know what sensor to need to use. Every application will needs it own sensor or most common a combination of sensors. The list below gives you a nice overview:
Internal
- Accelerometer
- Current sensor
- Encoder
- Gyroscope
- Torque Sensor
External
- Compass
- Contact sensor (e.g. Bumper)
- Infrared sensor
- GPS
- Laser rangers (Lidar)
- Photo resistor
- Sonar
- Vision