Madhu Annapragada wrote:
>I have been toying with this idea for a while and I will throw it out there
>to see if it even holds up to the piclist scrutiny. What do you think about
>teaching the bot the first time? With heading information from a compass and
>wheel rotation information from encoders, the bot would build a table of
>heading changes vs wheel rotations the first time (starting from a home
>position). One would use a joystick to mow the lawn the first time. The bot
>records the wheel position every time the heading changes by a certain
>amount. The second time around, the bot would head out in the first heading
>direction until it reaches the wheel rotation figure for the next heading
>change, change to the new heading and so on.
>Of course, the problems I see right away are wheel slippage and  noise from
>the compass. But for arguments sake, if I could solve those problems, do you
>see any other potential pitfalls for this method.
.........


Personally, I don't think that a dead reckoning system would work
at all well in this case. Yards are never perfectly flat, and the
moisture content - related to wheel slippage - is going to change
daily. However, if you were to add "some" kind of fixed markers, I
think a combination approach between marker sensing and dead
reckoning based upon an internal representation would put you in
business.

Possibly a wire around the outer perimeter, as Quiet Joe mentioned,
plus some low bricks at the edge of the flower beds, etc.

- dan
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