Moving to a point between lights with autonomous

[psquared89]

Wow, I hope I don't start off a discussion off-topic or offensive to anyone here, but I am truly disappointed in this thread. minifranco came to CD asking teams for a little help, a pointer in the right direction, and all he got were a series of cryptic, useless responses of teams guarding their hard-earned success instead of sharing them, even the tiniest part of them, with the community. I understand the competitive nature of the game, but why would you waste both his time and yours by rubbing in his face that you had succeeded where he had failed; I don't think he much cared that you did succeed, congratulations and all of that, he came here looking for help.

That brief rant non-withstanding, I am not our team programmer, but I do have some understanding. One method that, if not entirely accurate, should be somewhat successful:

Take advantage of what you know:

1.) Where YOU are, call this position the origin.
2.) Where each light is, relative to you. You know the structure these points are mounted to. As you travel towards them, keep calculating the relative growth/decay in the brightness of each light; yes, the camera is flipping back and forth, but in this case that's a good thing, updating your data for the two points roughly once/2sec. Using this growth/decay data and your relative position and orientation (all being relative from your starting position and orientation, the only thing you can really depend on (and that's depending on your drive team...)), you can extrapolate the position and orientation of the rack.

This does demand that you have some nice sensors on your robot; wheel encoders will well enough for position relative to your starting origin, or an accelerometer if you're feeling bold.

Hope I could help and sorry for the rant.