|
Whereas originally the term Navigation applies to the process of
directing a ship to a destination, Navigation research deals with fundamental aspects of navigation in general.
It can be defined as "The process of determining and maintaining a course or trajectory to a goal location" (Franz, Mallot,
2000). It concerns basically all moving agents, biological or artificial, autonomous or remote-controlled.
Franz and Mallot proposed a navigation hierarchy (
Robotics and Autonomous Systems 30 (2000), 133-153 ):
|
Behavioural prerequisite
|
Navigation competence
|
|
Local navigation
|
|
Search
|
Goal recognition
|
Finding the goal without active goal orientation
|
|
Direction-following
|
Align course with local direction
|
Finding the goal from one direction
|
|
Aiming
|
Keep goal in front
|
Finding a salient goal from a catchment area
|
|
Guidance
|
Attain spatial relation to the surrounding objects
|
Finding a goal defined by its relation to the surroundings
|
|
Way-finding
|
|
Recognition-triggered response
|
Association sensory pattern-action
|
Following fixed routes
|
|
Topological navigation
|
Route integration, route planning
|
Flexible concatenation of route segments
|
|
Survey navigation
|
Embedding into a common reference frame
|
Finding paths over novel terrain
|
There are two basic methods for navigation:
- Egocentric
navigation
- Allocentric
navigation
|