Line Following In Chapter 3, we talked about going straight and having a well-tuned robot. I mentioned using the field environment for help in traveling a straight line, such as running along the wall of the field with wall followers. Well, another great way to navigate along the field is to follow any lines that may be present on the field map. For example, the FLL 2009 Smart Move field was a line follower's dream. There were nice thick black lines that could guide a robot to most of the important places on the field. In fact, those lines were placed specifically to encourage teams to incorporate line following, or at least line detection, in their robot's logic. I believe a lot of teams recognize that line following is useful but struggle with how to build and develop a good line-following robot. The code doesn't have to be scary. Yes, you can have some very complicated line-following logic and use lots of fancy algorithms to keep your robot traveling smoothly, but there are simple solutions as well. I will try to explain some of the different techniques available. Remember, though, that these are just examples. I encourage your team to use these as a starting point and build on them; see how much better you can make them.
started by Thomas Helm on 12 Mar 12
In Chapter 3, we talked about going straight and having a well-tuned robot. I mentioned using the field
environment for help in traveling a straight line, such as running along the wall of the field with wall
followers. Well, another great way to navigate along the field is to follow any lines that may be present on
the field map. For example, the FLL 2009 Smart Move field was a line follower's dream. There were nice
thick black lines that could guide a robot to most of the important places on the field. In fact, those lines
were placed specifically to encourage teams to incorporate line following, or at least line detection, in
their robot's logic.
I believe a lot of teams recognize that line following is useful but struggle with how to build and
develop a good line-following robot. The code doesn't have to be scary. Yes, you can have some very
complicated line-following logic and use lots of fancy algorithms to keep your robot traveling smoothly,
but there are simple solutions as well. I will try to explain some of the different techniques available.
Remember, though, that these are just examples. I encourage your team to use these as a starting point
and build on them; see how much better you can make them.