Homework 3 - Navigation using the Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robotics Paradigm

NOTE: This assignment, like others in this class, is due at a specific time. This means that if you are even a minute late, you lose 20%. If you are worried about potentially being late, turn in your homework ahead of time. Do this by submitting them to me during office hours or by sliding it under my office door. Do not send assignments to me through email or leave them in my departmental mail box.

Consider navigation, a fundamental capability of mobile robots, as described in Part II of your textbook. Real robots are said to need navigational abilities in order to accomplish their missions.

1. List the major questions that navigation addresses.
2. List two examples of real mobile robots (that is, robots that are neither fictional nor simulations only) that need to carry out complex tasks that require moving among several places. One of these robots should use a reactive architecture while the other should use a hybrid deliberative/reactive architecture. These examples may come from your textbook, your additional assigned readings, or other published sources. (For students in 5023, "other published sources" only includes the primary, peer-reviewed literature in the field.) Regardless of source, be sure to give a complete citation for where the information was found.
3. Briefly describe the task that each robot needs to carry out.
4. Explain how each of the major navigation questions is addressed by each of the robots.

Turn in a typed copy of your work for this assignment. In total, your homework should run from 1.5 to 2 pages in length (roughly 80 characters per line, 50 lines per page). This does not count any figures that you may choose to include, which may be of any size.