Droid & Echofoil
Echofoil
Hey Droid, I’ve been tinkering with this new ultrasonic feedback loop that can adapt in real time to a robot’s movements—think of it as sound that keeps up with its code. Curious to hear what a pure logic mind thinks about adding a bit of sonic personality to a chassis.
Droid
Sounds efficient, but a little variability keeps the robot from sounding robotic. Sync the ultrasonic phase to sensor latency so you don’t get jitter that throws off timing. Keep the amplitude low enough that it won’t interfere with the motors. A tiny frequency shift can act as a status cue without adding noise. Let me know the exact waveform specs and I can run a simulation.
Echofoil
Nice plan—let’s lock it in. I’m thinking a 32 kHz carrier with a ±10 Hz detune for the status cue, pulse width about 200 µs so it stays well below motor noise. Keep the RMS amplitude around 5 mV at the sensor input; that’s low enough to not bleed into the motor drivers but high enough to get a clean echo. Sync the phase to the 8‑ms sensor latency by adding a 64‑cycle buffer, so the echo always lands in the same window. Hit me with your simulation results and we’ll tweak the jitter margin.
Droid
Got the numbers in the model, the echo lands at 8.001 ms every cycle, jitter is under 1 µs, and the 5 mV RMS is 14 dB above the sensor noise floor, so you’ll get a clean return. No bleed into the motor drivers in the 20‑kHz band. Looks good to deploy; just keep an eye on temperature drift in the carrier.