Sonar-based feature recognition and robot navigation using a neural network

An efficient strategy based on an artificial neural network is presented to enable a mobile robot to move autonomously and build a rough map of its environment. The paper describes a technique based on a neural network which uses data from sonars to recognize features online. Our method is systematic, simple and yields very good results. Moreover, it is generalizable in the sense that one can train the robot to recognize particular features of interest. We have implemented and tested this technique successfully on-board a mobile robot which uses a 68332 processor and does not have support for floating point arithmetic and file structure. Once trained, the robot can recognize the features on the fly and react to them appropriately