Compass Sensor

EV3 and HiTechnic Compass

Today I'll test if the HiTechnic Compass works as intended with the new EV3. My expectations are that the calibrations will be difficulat (as always), but that the rest should work.

Test setup

First off I'll place the compass sensor about 10 cm above the brick (which is then even further away from the motors). This is to limit the amount of electromagnetic noise registered from these actuators and circuit board. The configuration can be seen her:

Distance of compass from the rest of the robot

I've found, in previous tests with the NXT, that the proximity of actuators and/or the brick itself has a significant impact on the readings of the compass. 10 cm should be quite enough to limit the interference to a negligible amount.

Results

I had to bring the setup out of my appratment, as the walls seem to shield me from the earths magnetic field (hmm...), but once I found an environment where the compass had a chance of working, everything turned out great. Below is a video of my test:

Since I got the compass working at least to the same degree that I got it working for the NXT, I'd say this concludes my tests: EV3 supports this compass to the same degree that the NXT did.
As for the video. The first part is a calibration of the compass. The second part is my attempt to film the changing degrees - I see now that the video is of a too poor quality to show this, but I can assure you that the degrees changed according to what I expected while I turned on the spot.

Files

CompassTest.java