Mental Map
ok, heres the case:
I am working on a robot to carry my books to class. i have an IR remote & reciever, a compass sensor too.
how would I go about making a cyber-map that lets it navigate the halls? it needs to check its location by seeing doorways, and have multiple destinations-the 4 or 5 different classes and my locker
i also have a PING))) sensor to make it stop before it hits a person
p.s. i m posting off of my Nintendo DSi
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When you're dating a pretty girl, an hour seems like a minute.
When you're sitting on an oven, a minute seems like an hour.
That's relativity.
-Albert Einstein
I am working on a robot to carry my books to class. i have an IR remote & reciever, a compass sensor too.
how would I go about making a cyber-map that lets it navigate the halls? it needs to check its location by seeing doorways, and have multiple destinations-the 4 or 5 different classes and my locker
i also have a PING))) sensor to make it stop before it hits a person
p.s. i m posting off of my Nintendo DSi
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
When you're dating a pretty girl, an hour seems like a minute.
When you're sitting on an oven, a minute seems like an hour.
That's relativity.
-Albert Einstein
Comments
First get a BS in Computer Engineering, then stack a PHD on top of that in Computer Science.
But in all seriousness, it's a very difficult problem that you proposed, and one that doesn't have a viable solution at this time. You could make this easier on yourself if you make it remote controlled. A more difficult step up would be to have it follow you (via a IR beacon maybe). There was a gentleman here who had a golf caddie that followed him, but his design wouldn't work for you (more of an inspiration).
1) Measure approximately how far the robot moves. With the BoeBot, you can get a wheel encoder kit that counts the number of wheel slots that go by. You can do similar things with other robot designs
2) Use the PING))) and the IR sensors to measure the approximate distance from the side of the robot to the closest wall. As the robot passes an open doorway, you should see a mostly infinite distance. You could either have PING))) and IR sensors on the sides and front of the robot or you can use something like the PING))) servo bracket. You could even mount the IR receiver / emitter on the PING))) bracket.
3) Once you have these working properly, you can then couple the functions. As the robot moves forward, you'd use the distance measurements both to keep the robot from turning (the two wheels should move about the same amount) and to give you a distance measurement along the hallway. Every foot or so, you'd do a #2 operation to see if there's an open doorway there.
4) A map would simply be a group of bytes in EEPROM for each hallway with one or several bytes holding some representation of what's "visible" at each point along the hallway. One byte might have bits for whether there's a doorway on either side or whether that spot is your locker or one of your classes. Where hallways come together, one or more bytes would have the address of the hallway array for the hallway you'd get to if you turned right or the address of the hallway array for the hallway you'd get to if you turned left. Maybe there'd be a bit to indicate that the hallway ends there.
You'd develop the map by hand (more reliable) or by having the robot go down the hallway and record what it senses at each point in the hallway. If you develop the map yourself or hand correct a map recorded by the robot, the robot would use the hallway map in the future to navigate by comparing where it things it is with what it's finding along the way.
Being that your in a school, the colors of walls, floors, lockers etc. are usually pretty diverse, and often different in various areas of your school. if you were to correspond the colors, with your map it could also be an indicator of your approx. location and also used for error correction. if your bot thinks it's in hall A, but the color of the floor is not right, something is wrong....recalculate position. if the colors were unique enough throughout your school you could almost navigate by color alone.
if you build this, SLRM should have to call you DR. Benbo
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DGSwaner
"When in doubt, use C4" - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster