/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7470139
Current idea:
Mount a laser pointer (relatively bright even in sunshine) above the destination point, have the robot have three photoreceptors in front of it.
If the left photoreceptor detects the laser, make a slight course adjustment to the right.
If the right photoreceptor detects the laser, make a slight course adjustment to the left.
If the center detects the laser, do nothing.
Would have to have a very fast refresh rate (many times a second) to avoid going excessively off course.


Rejected ideas:
Laser beam homing: was going to have robot home in on LIDAR, but this is also prohibitively expensive. Might be feasible if they were less than or equal to $1000, but most are in the $4-5000 range.

Compass: too much margain of error. Even very expensive compasses are ±0.1 degree, which at 100m results in >1cm error (several inches IIRC).

GPS: not accurate enough.

Cell phone: robot may be in locations without cell coverage.

Magnetic detector (i.e. robot follows a buried wire or something similar): this is plan C. Expensive and only ideal if literally nothing else will suffice.

Might be some others but I can't recall