Whereas originally the term Navigation applies to the process of directing a ship to a destination, Navigation research deals with fundamental aspects of navigation in general. It can be defined as "The process of determining and maintaining a course or trajectory to a goal location" (Franz, Mallot, 2000). It concerns basically all moving agents, biological or artificial, autonomous or remote-controlled.
Franz and Mallot proposed a navigation hierarchy in Robotics and Autonomous Systems 30 (2006):
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Behavioural prerequisite |
Navigation competence |
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Local navigation |
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Search |
Goal recognition |
Finding the goal without active goal orientation |
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Direction-following |
Align course with local direction |
Finding the goal from one direction |
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Aiming |
Keep goal in front |
Finding a salient goal from a catchment area |
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Guidance |
Attain spatial relation to the surrounding objects |
Finding a goal defined by its relation to the surroundings |
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Way-finding |
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Recognition-triggered response |
Association sensory pattern-action |
Following fixed routes |
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Topological navigation |
Route integration, route planning |
Flexible concatenation of route segments |
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Survey navigation |
Embedding into a common reference frame |
Finding paths over novel terrain |
There are two basic methods for navigation:
- Egocentric navigation also known as Idiothetic navigation
- Allocentric navigation also known as Allothetic navigation
Read more about Navigation Research: Robotic Navigation
Famous quotes containing the word research:
“Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)