Polarization-based Robot Orientation and Navigation

Abstract

From insects in your garden to creatures in the sea, inspiration can be drawn from nature to design a whole new class of smart robotic devices. These smart machines may move like living creatures. They can be launched toward a specific target for a pre-defined task. Bio-inspiration is developing to meet the needs of many challenges particularly in machine vision. Some species in the animal kingdom like cephalopods, crustaceans and insects are distinguished with their visual capabilities which are strongly improved by means of polarization. This work surveys the most recent research in the area of bio-inspired polarization based robot orientation and navigation. Firstly, the authors will briefly discuss the polarization based orientation and navigation behavior in the animal kingdom. Secondly, a comprehensive cover of its mapping into robotics navigation and orientation estimation will be given. Finally, the future research directions will be discussed.