Industrial Sensing

Industrial and robotics ranging is not a smaller version of long-range ranging. The distances are centimeters to a few hundred meters, the update rate has to keep up with a control loop, the power budget is often a battery, and — the part that decides the architecture — you usually already know which direction to point.

That is the case for a single-point sensor rather than a scanner. A scanning LiDAR builds a point cloud you then have to process; a fixed-axis DToF module returns one calibrated distance along one known axis, with no mechanical or MEMS assembly in it and no cloud to consume compute. For a drop-off sensor under an AGV, a clearance sensor on an end-effector, a bumper-mounted forward sensor or a height check on a conveyor, that is not a compromise — it is the correct instrument. It also belongs in a fusion stack next to encoders, an IMU and a camera, contributing the one measurement none of those produce cleanly.

LRF100H is the middle of the H-series: 0.05–100 m at 90% reflectivity and 0.05–30 m at 10%, ±10 cm below 10 m and 1% of reading above it, repeatability ±5 cm below 10 m and ±10 cm at 100 m, 20 Hz to 10 kHz with a 1 kHz default, UART or I²C, 9–36 V DC, 100 kLux ambient-light immunity, ≈ 4 mrad field of view, 33 × 34 × 18 mm at 20 ± 2 g, 0.7 W average from 30 mA average / 100 mA peak, terminated in 1.25 mm 5-pin, 50 cm stranded leads.

The 9–36 V input is the detail that usually decides the choice. It matches a control cabinet or a larger AGV chassis rail, which rarely delivers a clean 3.3 V or 5 V at the sensor mounting point. If you are integrating at board level inside a small AMR, the VB-series is the other end of that trade: LRF50VB is 0.05–50 m at 90% / 0.05–20 m at 10%, ±5 cm below 5 m then 1%, a fixed 100 Hz, 3.3–5 V DC, 0.2 W, and 1.3 g in an 18.7 × 11.8 × 13.3 mm body. Wiring a 9–36 V part into a 5 V rail, or a 3.3 V part into an unregulated 24 V supply, is a design error the datasheet catches before the sensor does.

Three things to plan for before you commit a design.

Bus. Everything here is UART-TTL or I²C. No model offers RS-485, RS-232 or CAN natively. If the PLC or the fleet controller expects one of those, budget a converter in the BOM now. And although LRF100H’s table lists I²C, its published protocol does not state an I²C address — ask us rather than borrowing another model’s.

Protection. No H-series spec table carries a protection-rating row at all. For wash-down, outdoor or dusty installations, get the rating in writing for your model before you design the enclosure.

Reflectivity. Size against the worst material in your process, not the best. LRF100H reads 100 m against a 90% surface and 30 m against a 10% one; dark aggregate, powders and matte black fixtures sit at the low end.

Laser class reads Class 1, from the model manual. Appearance, structure and output protocol are listed as customizable on this series.

Discuss the requirement→