🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr9.131650.7721@sctc.com> smith@sctc.com (Rick Smith) writes:
>feng@srvr1 (Liqiang Feng, ) writes:
>
> [deleted ..]
>
>>In other words, is dead reckoning still a feasible option for 
>>navigation?                       ^^^^^^
>
>I didn't think dead reckoning had _ever_ been a feasible option for
>navigation. I had the impression that even oceangoing vehicles only
>used it as a method for choosing which continent they arrived at.
>

Well, for civil aircraft crossing the atlantic ocean it is still very
much used. There is still a three to four hour gap in which no
wall-based radio beacon can be received and during this period, they use
INS (inertial navigation system) for dead-reckoning.

It is pretty accurate too, the drift is of the order of an mile per hour
so once you reach the other side, you're only 4-5 miles off, not much
considering that you've bridged a distance of maybe 2000 miles.

Now, to put such systems ($$$) on a robot and waiting 15 or more minutes
to have them lined up is another issue...

-Teun

-- 
Teun Hendriks                                     tel: 	(914)-945-6408
Philips Laboratories                              fax:  (914)-945-6014
345 Scarborough Road
Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510,USA			email:	txh@philabs.philips.com