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Exercise 6.6 6 Common Sensing Techniques for Reactive Robots
Describe with examples the three attributes that should be considered for an entire
sensing suite. y
Exercise 6.7
Consider a Lego Mindstorms robot. Classify the available sensors for it in terms of
modalities.

Exercise 6.8
Describe the problems of specular reflection, cross talk, and foreshortening with an
ultrasonic transducer. y
Exercise 6.9
List the metrics for rating individual sensors and a sensor suite, and apply these met-
rics to a particular application. y
Exercise 6.10
An alternative to a Denning ring is to mount one or more sonars on a mast and turn
the mast. Turning gives the robot a 360 coverage. Which do you think would be
better, a fixed ring or a panning mast? Would a panning mast reduce problems of
foreshortening, cross-talk, and specular reflection.
Exercise 6.11
List and describe advantages and disadvantages of 3 different sensors, including one
type of computer vision. y
Exercise 6.12
Describe all the different characteristics of sensors that must be evaluated when de-
signing a sensor suite. In addition, give priorities for each to determine which you
would consider to be the most and least important of these characteristics for a ro-
bot that was going to be designed for the 1994 AUVS Unmanned Ground Robotics
Competition. y

Exercise 6.13
Pick a sensor suite that you think would do a good job if you were designing a robot
for the 1995 UGV competition described in an earlier chapter. Explain what each sen-
sor would do as well as describe the sensors and sensor suite in terms of the attributes
listed in this chapter. y
Exercise 6.14
You are to design a sensor suite for a new robot for use by fire fighters. The robot is
designed to seek out people in a smoke filled building. Keep in mind the following:
1. Visibility is often very limited due to smoke.
2. Heat can be both an attactive force (e.g. human) or repulsive (e.g. open flame).
3. Obstacles may have a wide variety of sound absorbtion (e.g. carpeting or furni-
ture).