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Subject: 
Re: A robot who knows his position (fwd)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Thu, 29 Apr 1999 07:14:29 GMT
Viewed: 
3058 times
  
In lugnet.robotics, lego-robotics@crynwr.com (John A. Tamplin) writes:
> I have been thinking about a different approach.  I have not actually built
> anything to use it yet, but I believe it should work reasonably well.
> 
> The basic idea is similar to the old optical mouse pads -- draw
> horizontal and vertical lines on the playing field.  Use different colors
> for the horizontal and vertical lines (easily distinguishable by the
> light sensor's greyscale values).  You can then compute relative position
> changes and from that direction of travel.  Obviously, the resolution you can
> achieve is limited to the spacing of the lines and the accuracy of
> measuring your bot's motion in between them, but it should be sufficient.
> The difficulties come from distinguishing the lighter-colored line from the
> fringe of the darker line, and the varying line widths depending on the
> angle of travel relative to the line.  For instance, travelling parallel
> to one of the axes will result in no line crossings for that axis (or
> continuously being on an axis).
> 
> You can use wider lines in the center of the playing field to give an
> idea of absolute positon, or you can allow your bot to explore the
> playing field determining the dimensions by bumper contact with the edge.
> 
> Clearly, this is only applicable in limited situations where you can mark
> the area the bot will traverse.

I like John's idea. You could combine it with odometry and get a very
affordable and precise positioning system. I'm quite happy with the results of
odometry in the short range, I mean until you accumulate too many small
errors. My robot estimates its position very well (much less then 1cm=0.4")
when the run is short (about 1m=40"). If you give it a way to zero the
accumulated errors using an external reference (like John's grid) you can keep
this resolution constant during time. The grid could have a step of about 10"
or even 20" if you rely on odometry between the lines.

Mario



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: A robot who knows his position (fwd)
 
(...) I have been thinking about a different approach. I have not actually built anything to use it yet, but I believe it should work reasonably well. The basic idea is similar to the old optical mouse pads -- draw horizontal and vertical lines on (...) (27 years ago, 28-Apr-99, to lugnet.robotics)

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