Saminda Wattuhewa, senior lecturer and course leader in cyber security, University of Portsmouth
A construction site is one of the worst places to rely on GPS. Concrete floors stack overhead, steel frames scatter the signal, and basements block it outright.
Yet this is exactly the environment where autonomous robots are increasingly expected to work precisely and navigate around moving crews, doing it without a satellite fix to tell them where they are.
The technology filling that gap is Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM). Rather than relying on a pre-loaded map or an external positioning signal, a SLAM-equipped robot builds its own map in real time using cameras or Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), often combined with inertial measurements for extra stability between readings. [Read more…] about Opinion: How robots are learning to navigate the building site