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Originally Posted by phrontist
What is terrain following, and how is it different than optical mouse based navigation?
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It's not different. Say I took some Agilent optical mouse sensor and placed it on the bottom of my robot. The camera would map the terrain over which the robot passes by comparing frame to frame. Hence the term "terrain following." This isn't to be confused with US Air Force LANTIRN technology, which is completely different... I mean more on the order of a non-INS that doesn't guesstimate position based on what the propulsion system is doing. A robot with a non-drive wheel hooked up to an encoder works by the same principle as an optical mouse then, and could be classified as "terrain following," though it's of course not as accurate as an optical mouse.