Doesn't Roomba use some kind of radio beacon to home in on its charger? I know it can find one in a different room, and it is not sophisticated enough that it builds a map of where it is and where it has been.

I guess a simple solution is to build your robot on a Roomba or iRobot Create and just tell it to go charge, but where is the fun in that?

Alan

I made the assumption that the robot had ping/echo and IR sensors for object avoidance.

As far as I recall GPS is only accurate to ~10m so even if it worked indoors it wouldn't be accurate enough to send the robot home, unless I'm very much mistaken?

If it needs a lot of complicated methods such as encoders, maps etc. then the easy alternative is to place QR codes around the place so with a quick look around it will find out where it and work out where it needs to get to... or have a couple of charging stations (one for each room).

yes it uses a 360 beacon with IR omnicone receiver and IR transmitter on the charging base

OMNICONE is mostly a cone shaped mirror to refect the light or video to 360 deg IT can be used for web camera too

ROOMBA is one of my favorate platforms,one is the home base finder other is low cost,ebay mostly has them for about $50 used and just remove the vacuum parts add a 3 rd wheel and you got a great platform that can carry 35 lbs or i have upgrade its design to carry 70 lbs.

Downside is navigation cant really change it (mapping) plus not made for small robots as a platform

here is more info on the ROOMBA docking

Docking. For models with a dock, Roomba can dock itself for a recharge when it needs it. The dock projects two IR beams in a V shape. The beams are apparently coded so that Roomba can tell them from a virtual wall. When Roomba wants to dock, it will find one of these beams and follow it back to it's source by tracing the inside edge of the V. It tries to stay out of the beams so that it will follow the V gap between them. This V will lead it right back to the dock. In the case where it doesn't hit the dock at an adequate angle, it will back off, turn around and try again. Docking can be forced by manually driving Roomba back near the dock with the remote control or by pushing and holding the "clean" and "spot" buttons on Roomba together. It will then abandon it's cleaning program and search out the dock. manual docking mode is indicated by the "spot" and "clean" buttons flashing rapidly together. Docking behavior is indicated by Roomba turning and dancing in front of the dock.

The docking behavior doesn't work every time. Sometimes Roomba simply runs out of juice while is too far from the dock and Roomba stops in place. At this point, it won't do anything and it must be picked up and placed on the dock. The docking mode will work best if the dock is positioned in a location where the IR beams sweep out toward the center of a room so that Roomba will tend to run across them in its travels. The range of the beams is something less than 8 feet. The IR beams from virtual walls can interfere with those from the dock. Make sure that the virtual walls are separated from the dock by at least 8 feet AND are not pointed back at the dock.

Even 1m accuracy would be pretty useless for this application though.

With the QR codes, they can be used to let the robot know where it is, not necessarily on the dock but for instance on the north wall of the kitchen, when it sees it the robot will know where it is and what direction it's facing. More for reference points than a guidance system. Not ideal but who said it was an ideal solution?

At the same time, it is presumed the robot would have the necessary object avoidance sensors as previously mentioned. With reference points that the robot can identify measuring the distance wouldn't be an issue - and distance is only useful if you accurately know how far, fast and in what direction your robot is moving.

QR Codes can be picked up from quite a long distance. EZ-Script can be used to have the robot search for a QR Code, face, color etc.

The main issue is budget, not many have $4000+ to spend on having a robot self charge. I'm all about a good balance between cost and function.

NO but can easy be done with only sensors

$4000 item is for a different project nt using EZB $1100 lidar is compare to NEATO XV-11 you can get for about $110 ,already a few from this group bought one from me

Cant pick up QR codes if behind a wall or in back of the robot,my house would look very bad to have even one QR code on the wall. and mostly you need a few

QR codes not really AI navigation ,like how a person finds a way into the room

I refuse to repeat myself again re: the QR Codes.

The goal is to achieve this with a budget of $0 over what is already assumed to be on a standard robot (camera & ping sensor i.e. items that come bundled in the EZ-Robot Kit). There is a way to do that using QR Codes as explained numerous times.

If that is not ideal for your situation look at the next cheapest alternative. With a combination of sensors for detecting objects, detecting direction and detecting movement along with scripts to manipulate these I'm sure it's very achievable on a limited budget.

Roomba docking seems it may be a cost effective solution but how could it be added to the EZB and other robot platforms (i.e. Wall-E or Omnibot)?

And is't the Lidar from the Neato XV-11 for object avoidance? It alone would not have the robot find home? In which case why spend a further $100 on what is already acceptable with the ping/echo sensor and/or IR sensors?