Range finder for terrain following in Drone Programming - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Range finder for terrain following

📖 Scenario: You are programming a drone to fly safely over uneven terrain. The drone uses a range finder sensor to measure the distance to the ground below. Your task is to process these sensor readings to help the drone maintain a steady height above the ground.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple program that stores range finder readings, sets a safe flying height threshold, filters readings that are too close to the ground, and then prints the safe distances for the drone to follow.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list called range_readings with exact distance values from the sensor.

Create a variable called safe_height to represent the minimum safe flying height.

Use a list comprehension to create a new list called safe_readings containing only readings greater than or equal to safe_height.

Print the safe_readings list to show the filtered safe distances.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Drones use range finders to avoid crashing into the ground when flying over hills or uneven surfaces. Processing these readings helps keep the drone at a safe height.

💼 Career

Understanding how to handle sensor data and apply filtering is important for drone programming, robotics, and any job involving real-time data processing.

1

Create the range finder data list

Create a list called range_readings with these exact distance values in meters: 3.5, 2.0, 4.8, 1.5, and 5.0.

Drone Programming

# Create the list range_readings with the given distances
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets [] to create a list and separate values with commas.

2

Set the safe flying height threshold

Create a variable called safe_height and set it to the value 3.0 to represent the minimum safe flying height in meters.

Drone Programming

range_readings = [3.5, 2.0, 4.8, 1.5, 5.0]
# Create the variable safe_height and set it to 3.0
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the number 3.0 to the variable safe_height using the equals sign =.

3

Filter safe range readings

Use a list comprehension to create a new list called safe_readings that contains only the values from range_readings that are greater than or equal to safe_height.

Drone Programming

range_readings = [3.5, 2.0, 4.8, 1.5, 5.0]
safe_height = 3.0
# Create safe_readings using list comprehension filtering values >= safe_height
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the format [item for item in list if condition] to filter the list.

4

Display the safe readings

Print the safe_readings list to show the filtered safe distances for the drone.

Drone Programming

range_readings = [3.5, 2.0, 4.8, 1.5, 5.0]
safe_height = 3.0
safe_readings = [distance for distance in range_readings if distance >= safe_height]
# Print the safe_readings list
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(safe_readings) to display the list.