🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct2.193224.12784@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> vadim@cs.stanford.edu writes:
>I'm planning to incorporate a Global Positioning System and a Digital
>Compass into a wheeled robot for improved navigation.  If anyone is familiar
>with vendors that market either a GPS or such a compass, I would love to
>hear about it!  Thanks in advance!

Cool, I've played with one of these a bit and read the manuals a bit more.
Its not too useful on a robot while the military is "scrambling" it. They
dephase the signal enough so that the accuracy of a six receiver box
drops down to +/- 100' which isn't too good for a robot (but its great
for a car :-)) Now there are tricks you can play that improve this,
the most notable is the swedish "Put a GPS receiver or three in a
well known spot and compare the known position with the real position
and then send correction signals via RF to mobile sensors." Using such
a scheme resolutions below 10cm are possible. If you get the accuracy
up you don't really need a compass, just move a little bit and watch
your lat and long. Then you can calculate your direction really
easily. Motorola, Rockwell, and Magnavox all make GPS receivers that
dump out RS-232. Look for them to cost about $1200 single unit with
an antenna. You can get maps from a company called "MapInfo" which
will let you hook up a GPS receiver to a laptop computer and get a
moving map display in your car. This is _way_ cool and can give other
technodroids serious envy :-)

--
--Chuck McManis						    Sun Microsystems
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: <none>   Internet: cmcmanis@Eng.Sun.COM
NIS+ Architect
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.