Performance of two homing strategies in environments with differently distributed obstacles

Two computationally simple forms of dead reckoning were implemented in a physical robot (Khepera). The precision of homing was compared between both strategies for various environments in which obstacles were distributed in four different ways: regular, at random, clumped, and with walls. Counter intuitively, the computational more complex strategy did not perform better in general. Both strategies performed best in a regular environment. In a regular environment the simpler strategy (´counter turning´) was even more precise than the more complex strategy (´retrace your trail´). On the other hand retrace your trail performed better than counter turning in the clumped environment.