Human vision is good at finding contours. Can a simple algorithm do as well? Yes!
Here I used a biological algorithm called “lateral inhibition” to find the edges & corners of a sensor array. All that is needed is that each sensor’s output has an inhibitory effect on its neighbors which falls off as the square of the distance (which is what a radio signal coming from a sensor does).
LEFT SIDE – A regular array and a jittered array.
RIGHT SIDE – What the algorithm decided:
- Red indicates “corner”
- Orange indicates “edge”.
- Green indicates “inside”
This work was performed while employed at Sun Microsystems and formed the basis of a patent entitled “Sensor Localization Using Lateral Inhibition”. See patent details in my RESUME.