EV3 infrared sensor and beacon question

[tabbycatrobots]

Let me start by saying, I haven't used any of the 3rd party infrared parts for Mindstorms and know little
about IR, so my question may be nonsensical. For the IR sensor and beacon, can these be paired up? Will
an EV3 robot be able to be programmed to ID a particular beacon? E.g., given 2 EV3 robots with IR sensors,
and 5 beacons located around a room, can robot 1 be programmed to travel to beacon A, and robot
2 be programmed to travel to beacon D? Or maybe more interesting, can robot 1 be programmed to
travel to beacon A, then to beacon B, then C , D, and E in order? Thanks for any thoughts.

Howard

[jwiger]

I'm sure with hacked code in the brick and programmable IR beacons this is easily possible. Whether or not the original beacon/controller and code support this is unknown to me.

[mattallen37]

It looks to me that there is a selector switch on the remote, similar to that on the PF remote. I would guess that there are four "channels", as is the case with PF.

[tabbycatrobots]

Thanks for the comments. Some projects are already coming to mind. It sounds like EV3 robots will be
able to go directly from one point to another without line following, similar to the small orange warehouse
robots on 60 Minutes the other night. (<http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138922n>)
Most of my NXT projects now involve some sort of line following. So, EV3 - no more creating lined
floor mats, or maybe, we'll know in 7, 8, 9 months.

Howard

[jwiger]

The Nintendo Wii uses two IR lights, and an IR camera in the remote to orient It's pointers. It then uses the space between the IR lights to establish depth perception (distance) if you add a third light on the same plane to make an irregular 2 dimensional triangle, an IR camera could tell direction and distance (the Wii remote uses an accelerometer to determine if it is upside-down or right side up). Put that triangle on your ceiling and you have an IR equivalent to indoor GPS (well for one room at least).