Introducing the Floor Finder technique

What I will be presenting in this chapter is my version of a Floor Finder technique that is different from RoboRealm, or other floor-finder algorithms, but that accomplishes the same results. Let’s break this simple concept down for ease of understanding.

We know that the floor directly in front of the robot is free from obstacles. We use the video image pixels of the area just in front of the robot as an example and look for the same texture to be repeated farther away. We are matching the texture of the part of the image we know is the floor with pixels farther away. If the textures match, we mark that area green to show that it is drivable and free of obstacles. We will be using bits of this technique in this chapter. By the way, did you notice that I said texture and not color? We are not matching the color of the floor, because the floor is not all one color. I have a brown carpet in my upstairs game room, which still has considerable...