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a. 6 Common Sensing Techniques for Reactive Robots

b.

Figure 6.10 CRISbot, the Colorado School of Mines’ entry in the 1997 AAAI Mo-
bile Robot Competition Hors d’Oeuvres, Anyone? event. a.) Interacting with the
audience. b.) Audience members “communicated” by kicking the two protruding
bumpers near the bottom of the robot. (Photographs courtesy of AAAI.)

However, they are often interchangeable with IR sensors because IR sensors
often operate over the short range (inches) with less reliability.

6.6 Computer Vision

COMPUTER VISION Computer vision refers to processing data from any modality which uses the
IMAGE electromagnetic spectrum which produces an image. An image is essentially
a way of representing data in a picture-like format where there is a direct
physical correspondence to the scene being imaged. Unlike sonar, which
returns a single range reading which could correspond to an object any-
where within a 30 cone, an image implies multiple readings placed in a
two-dimensional array or grid. Every element in the array maps onto a small
PIXELS region of space. The elements in image arrays are called pixels, a contraction