Nine-eyed robots are go

Nine-eyed robots are go ROBOTS should have eyes in the back of their heads as well the front. Researchers in the US say a robot’s navigation skills could be vastly improved by giving it ‘omni-directional’ vision.

A robot on the move must be able to sense whether it is travelling in a straight line or spinning on the spot. But telling the difference is difficult with just a single camera for an eye. Yiannis Aloimonos, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park, says the best way to understand the problem is to imagine seeing the world through a cardboard tube.

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