If you’ve done any significant experimentation with Arduino and Raspberry Pi robotics, you’ve undoubtedly come across the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor. These inexpensive units provide an easy way to allow your robot to see (or literally, hear) what’s in front of it. If you want to use a number of sensors facing in different directions, things get a bit more complicated, in part because they can be difficult to mount.
To solve this problem, Alastair Young, aka Red Hunter created the Trimount bracket system, which staggers 3 of these sensors on a PCB at 45 degrees. With the help of standoffs, two of the sensor units are mounted underneath the third in a nice compact package. Wiring is broken out on the back to allow connection with RC-style jumpers.
As illustrated in the video below, this arrangement can be implemented with a robot in order to calculate how it’s approaching a wall. This means it can make adjustments and avoid crashes much more gracefully than when using a single sensor. Four boards are included, so you’ll be able to cover the corners of a rectangular sensing setup as shown in the video below.
As for how you can easily collect readings from 12 or more sensors, Red Hunter has you covered there as well, with the Octosonar X2 that we covered in 2018.