‘Navigation with the Dipole Calculus’ in GI Zeitgeist 2012

Paper and slides of a presentation given in GI Zeitgeist 2012, in Münster, Germany.

The following is the abstract of the paper:

We present an algorithm that enables robots to navigate a street network with a minimum of local and global knowledge using the Dipole calculus for qualitative spatial representation of line segments. A constraint-based approach is employed where decisions are made based on relational constraints imposed on possible route alternatives. We also provide a simulation to evaluate the usefulness of the navigation algorithm.

We also provide a QGIS plugin in order to ease testing and replication. The plugin requires the software SparQ, developed by the University of Bremen, Germany. The plugin allows the user to select start and end dipoles and shows logging messages for step-by-step operations and results. The plugin can be downloaded from this link.

You can download the paper from this link.