Sharp IR for rangefinding?

Howdy! I got a couple of these to try out as a front mounted range sensor with a cube.

Sharp GP2 IR distance sensor

Does anyone have experience integrating them? I have it displaying distance, but it’s very off and I can’t seem to find a scaling value that makes it better.

I played with one of the Sharp models a few years ago.
You need to use a capacitor between 5v and ground to reduce noise, as it uses the 5v input as Vref - any noise on the power results in an inaccurate signal.

I should add that ultimately I gave up, but we didn’t have avoidance back then. It’s probably more suited to avoidance than an altitude source.

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Also the analog signal is “backwards”, so they aren’t plug and play alternatives to an analog sonar.
By that I mean the analog signal decreases with range, not increases as you might expect (and as the maxbotix sonars do).

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