Abstract
A polarization sensor (POL-sensor) is a biomimetic sensor that uses the polarized light in the sky to determine the direction of the solar meridian. The ommatidium of an insect's compound eye uses paired channels to enhance the sensitivity to polarized light. Existing POL-sensors have a crossed-analyzer composed of paired phototransistors to mimic this characteristic. However, the large number of phototransistors used in these units makes them too heavy for use on small robots. We have made a POL-sensor without a crossed-analyzer. Our POL-sensor has half the number of phototransistors compared with a sensor using a crossed-analyzer, which makes our sensor much lighter. We have demonstrated redundant control of a small, wheeled robot using our POL-sensor together with a magnetic sensor.
