Building Robots with LEGO® Mindstorms® NXT

Chapter 13. Knowing Where You Are

Solutions in this chapter:

• Choosing Internal or External Guidance

• Looking for Landmarks: Absolute Positioning

• Map Matching Using Ultrasonic Sensor

• Combining Compass Sensor to Increase Precision

• Measuring Movement: Relative Positioning

• Measuring Movement: Acceleration Sensor

Introduction

After our first few months of experimenting with robotics using the Mindstorms NXT kit, we began to wonder if there was a simple way to make our robot know where it was and where it was going—in other words, we wanted to create some kind of navigation system able to establish its position and direction. We started reading books and searching the Internet, and discovered that this is still one of most demanding tasks in robotics and that ...