player/stage robot mapping/exploration HD

Source code is available here: https://github.com/sunsided/bht-ams-playerstage It now supports Vagrant, so "vagrant up" and "vagrant ssh" should get you going. This is a player/stage setup of a robot with a noise-free laser rangefinder (0..4m) mapping a room without localization and pathfinding. I was experimenting with a way to follow a wall while having a continuous motion by means of applying forces that pull and push the robot to and from walls. There is a P controller for the track speed, as well as some sort-of P controllers for the angular velocity. The latter ones react to direct and inverse proximity to obstacles and are used to avoid obstacles in the front by moving to the left, but also to steer the robot to the right when there is a void. The map the robot creates encodes locations that have been seen in a green color. The color is stronger if a wall was seen in the given direction. This information, however, is not used in the demonstrated implementation.