Robot Foundations 04, beginner
Build the Robot's World
Turn sensor observations into a simple map the robot can use.
Your robot can move. Your robot can sense. But it still doesn't have a useful picture of its surroundings. It needs a map.
- Real world
- Sensors
- Observations
- Map
- Robot uses the map
Stages
Key ideas
Observations are not a map
A sensor gives distances from where the robot is right now. A map is what the robot remembers and builds from many observations.
Occupancy grid
The world is split into cells. Each cell is unknown, free or occupied.
Updating the map
Cells a ray passes through become free. The cell where it stops becomes occupied.
Pose matters
“2 m ahead” only becomes a place on the map if the robot knows where it was and which way it faced.
Loading
? unknown free# occupied