Sectorsranging

Sectorsranging is a concept used in robotics, signal processing, and geospatial analysis to describe a method of representing spatial information by partitioning the surrounding space into angular sectors and recording distance measurements within each sector. The term combines sector, referring to angular divisions around a reference origin, with ranging, the process of measuring distance.

Definition: A sector is defined by two angular bounds relative to a reference orientation. For each sector, a range statistic is computed from sensor data, such as the nearest object (minimum range), the farthest object (maximum range), or a density-weighted average. Data may come from LiDAR, radar, sonar, camera-based range estimation, or fused sensor streams.

Methodology: The environment is discretized into N sectors, often evenly spaced around 360 degrees but adaptable to focus on regions of interest. Within each sector, samples are aggregated to produce a sector-range profile. This profile can be updated in real time to reflect changes. Output forms include a sector-range map, a polar plot, or a simplified occupancy representation.

Applications: In autonomous vehicles and mobile robots, sectorsranging supports fast obstacle detection and planning by providing a compact environmental summary. It also appears in radar or sonar surveillance, maritime navigation, and geospatial scanning where angular coverage is a practical unit of analysis.

Advantages and limitations: Sector-based representation reduces data complexity and supports rapid decisions, but can obscure fine spatial details within a sector and depends on the chosen sector size and sensor quality.

See also: Occupancy grids, range imaging, lidar, radar, angular sector analysis.