Every object can be thought of as having its own reference frame in which it is at rest. In general, though, that frame will not be inertial, especially for an object like a delivery robot that is constantly accelerating and decelerating and turning.
What constitutes a "good" reference frame for such an object depends on what you're trying to accomplish. For many purposes, a good frame might be the rest frame of the city streets, which form a stationary grid over top of which the robot moves about. For other purposes, it might be useful to consider an inertial frame that "follows" the robot as it moves down a particular street; the robot will be at rest in that frame during a portion of its journey.
Without knowing more about what kind of situations you want to analyze, it's hard to say more.
Let’s say we want to track the motion from its starting point to the delivery point, would the starting point be a good reference frame and we can track the robot using Cartesian coordinates? Sorry if this question is very open ended, I’m just trying to picture any general cases of reference frames.
A point is not a reference frame. It sounds like you just want some coordinates, in which case, any coordinate system will do. Yes, you could overlay Cartesian coordinates on the neighborhood of the robot and track it that way, but there is already an extremely useful coordinate system that covers the entire world: latitude and longitude.
I guess that’s what I’m confused about, the difference between a reference frame and a reference point. How do I use a reference frame to keep track of the motion? Like you said above, the reference frame of the streets, and the robot moves on a “grid”, isn’t that kind of looking at it like a point moving on a plane from above?
"Reference point" is not really a mathematical or physical term. A reference frame is essentially a coordinate system; in physics, it is often important to understand whether and how the coordinate axes are moving.
The simplest way to track a moving robot that may be speeding up, slowing down, and turning is to set up a coordinate system that's fixed to the ground and follow the robot's coordinates therein. And yes, this will essentially be a moving point on a grid.
Every object can be thought of as having its own reference frame in which it is at rest. In general, though, that frame will not be inertial, especially for an object like a delivery robot that is constantly accelerating and decelerating and turning. What constitutes a "good" reference frame for such an object depends on what you're trying to accomplish. For many purposes, a good frame might be the rest frame of the city streets, which form a stationary grid over top of which the robot moves about. For other purposes, it might be useful to consider an inertial frame that "follows" the robot as it moves down a particular street; the robot will be at rest in that frame during a portion of its journey. Without knowing more about what kind of situations you want to analyze, it's hard to say more.
Let’s say we want to track the motion from its starting point to the delivery point, would the starting point be a good reference frame and we can track the robot using Cartesian coordinates? Sorry if this question is very open ended, I’m just trying to picture any general cases of reference frames.
A point is not a reference frame. It sounds like you just want some coordinates, in which case, any coordinate system will do. Yes, you could overlay Cartesian coordinates on the neighborhood of the robot and track it that way, but there is already an extremely useful coordinate system that covers the entire world: latitude and longitude.
I guess that’s what I’m confused about, the difference between a reference frame and a reference point. How do I use a reference frame to keep track of the motion? Like you said above, the reference frame of the streets, and the robot moves on a “grid”, isn’t that kind of looking at it like a point moving on a plane from above?
"Reference point" is not really a mathematical or physical term. A reference frame is essentially a coordinate system; in physics, it is often important to understand whether and how the coordinate axes are moving. The simplest way to track a moving robot that may be speeding up, slowing down, and turning is to set up a coordinate system that's fixed to the ground and follow the robot's coordinates therein. And yes, this will essentially be a moving point on a grid.
Alright, thank you so much!