CHAPTER 4
 TESTING AND RESULTS

 This chapter describes the testing of the individual subsystems associated with the

Andros' Intelligent Primitive Driver (IPD). Testing procedures and results will be

reported for the stair-counter assembly, the auxiliary track positioning system and the

heading alignment controller.

 4.1 Stair-Counter Assembly

4.1.1 Testing Procedure

 The stair counter assembly was tested to ascertain whether or not the concept would

accurately count the number of stairs the platform has passed and therefore, be a viable

addition to the positioning system. The first step to accomplish this task was to calibrate

the infrared sensors that the system uses. This was done to correlate the values returned

from the analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which are used to interface the Sharp

GP2D12 infrared object detectors and the Rabbit RCM3200 microcontroller, to their

corresponding distances. To do this, a target was first placed a known distance away

from the infrared sensor. Then, one hundred readings of the value returned from the

infrared sensor through the ADC were recorded and their average obtained. The target

was then moved to another known distance and the average value was again found. This

process was repeated for distances measuring 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 inches. The data points

were plotted using Excel and several regression curves were applied to determine which

type best fit the data. It was determined that the non-linear power function shown in