La lectura de un par de proyeccciones de infrarrojos al techo que proyecta la base (donde se aloja para alimentarse) le permite saber donde está respecto a la base (cuyas coordenadas de posición ya ha memorizado el robot). Creo que llega a ser algo así como una "triangulación" de la señal, pero en este caso son 2.
Extendiendo el sistema a la navegación, parece que puede ser un sistema eficaz para que el robot "conozca" siempre su posición relativa en el entorno que debe moverse.
Otro sistema es el que emplea el autor del siguiente artículo de la revista ROBOT, con un robot Scribbler:
The Scribbler Robot represents a great value to the robotics enthusiast. It's affordable and comes completely assembled with a built-in Parallax BASIC Stamp 2, drive motors and a host of on-board sensors. It comes preprogrammed with seven simple routines to demonstrate its sensors and motors. Software and a serial cable are included so it can be programmed in PBasic and it offers a simple GUI that lets children use it to draw patterns on paper as it rolls along. Although it has been used in a few introductory college courses, I believe that Scribbler has been largely dismissed as a "kiddie" robot. It is similar in many ways to its popular kit-based brother, the Boe-Bot, except that the Scribbler's sensors and I/Os are hard-wired. It is just as programmable and a good match for this project...