Artificial Intelligence for Robotics

GPS path finding does not use a map!

I wanted to have the opportunity, since we have come this far, to talk just for a little bit about topological path planners. This is an alternative method to the grid-based techniques we used in the preceding sections. There are types of problems and types of navigation where a grid-based approach is not appropriate or would require astronomical amounts of detailed data that may not be available or practical in a small robot.

As an example, I wanted to talk about how your GPS in your car finds a route along streets to reach your destination. You must have wondered about how that box has enough information in its tiny brain to provide turn-by-turn directions from one place to another. You may have imagined, ...