Thanks Guys ..

I wonder how Shinsel does it with Loki ? The beacon idea looks the most promising - as DJ said - but I'm looking for all kinds of answers to this challenge.

The route Bob has to go is pretty much an upside down L tilted 45 deg so I could have him travel in a straight line for 5 meters (x amount of milliseconds) then turn left (measured degree of turn by milliseconds) travel a meter distance and stop. The glyph idea is sticky because it will be dim light in the morning and the camera that came with the kit is average (like a baby monitor camera). I've messed around quite a bit with all the video stuff and it is demanding on light and distance balance. I could try the camera on the netbook - but that's probably not much better. This is all new territory and is going to take me looking at plenty of things that have been tried. Multiple systems looks a headache - but may be the only option. Thanks for the tips and things to try.

If I find something straight forward and up to the job you guys will be the first to know.

Check this out

Also found this... Forget beacons and gps. With this technology..Robots can not only avoid obstacles around your house but can learn and avoid people that might walk in its way. I have no idea how it works but it sure is going to be fun finding out how. You need to use Kinect software. One catch - the kinect hardware is around $200.

Kinect Navigation

OK everyone, a MS Kinect sensor is on my xmas list - you can pickemupanywhere for $92 here in Australia. If anyone can do better please let me know.

Cheers

:)

I think it's a good price for kinect and incehible serious progress, but first we need to ez-b supports kinect, I have read something about future plans between ez-b and kinect but can not find the thread.

This is interesting someone needs to write a script

@DJ here is an idea if you could draw on the floor map some basic shapes to match your robots surrounding then when the virtual bot gets close to or touches a boundary shape on the map it can change the direction of the real bot to avoid it or follow a set path round the shape and go to a final destination.

I would still want to use a ping sensor to avoid any unforseen contacts obviously and maybe have some points on the map corresponding to real world points where things can get re-calibrated. I've added an example

Maybe just have shaded no go areas

Hi winstn60, I had a similar idea to solve getting Bob from Lounge to kitchen then after testing discovered a major snag. There's a problem with floor map..unless I missed an update, Floor Map is useless for this kind of project as it will not save after only travelling a few feet. Something about running out of memory which I find extrordinary - however, thats why my lates project is on hold.

Cheers