[comp.robotics] Behavior Oriented Robotics

tdaniel@hubcap.clemson.edu (tod daniels) (03/07/91)

I just read an article in the new Discover magazine about robots that
are controlled by responses to a set of behaviors.  Rather than operating
with a real-world model, these robots use a set of primitives that compete
for control.

EX:	
If the robot encounters a wall, the AVIOD OBSTACLE behavior assumes control 
and guides the robot around the wall.  Then the other behavior resumes
control.

Does anyone have any information on this method or can they recommend any
literature on the subject??

Furthermore, what do you think about his ideas personally??


-- 
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"It's so lonely when you don't even know yourself"  -- RHCP

	tod daniels -- tdaniel@hubcap.clemson.edu 

iaf@ely.cl.cam.ac.uk (Innes Ferguson) (03/12/91)

I haven't seen the Discover article you mention, but I'm guessing
it refers to work done by Brooks et al. at MIT. If this is so, then
as a good starting point I would recommend "A Robust Layered Control System
for a Mobile Robot" (R.A. Brooks, IEEE J of RA, 2(1), 1986). As a followup
I suggest reading Robotics and Autonomous Systems 6(1&2), 1990. The latter
is a special issue on Designing Autonomous Agents (Pattie Maes, guest
editor) and reviews work related/similar to behaviour-oriented robots (e.g.
reactive and situated action agents, computational neuroethology, etc.).

I would also recommend a couple of articles in Artificial Intelligence
47, 1991. The first is by Brooks - "Intelligence without representation" -
and the second is by David Kirsh - "Today the earwig, tomorrow man?"
Kirsh's article is a response to Brooks' claim that conceptual
representation is unnecessary for designing agents capable of "intelligent"
behaviour.

IMHO, Brooks' ideas are important as he is suggesting a very different
approach to creating artificial intelligence from the more traditional
(symbolic, high-level, inference-driven) approach. However, I think his
stance is somewhat extreme and I doubt very much whether his subsumption
architecture can be scaled up to deal with such tasks as predicting
other robots'/agents' intentions, learning, reconciling local and global
constraints on a robot's own (multiple) goals, problem solving, language
understanding, etc. _without_ resorting to explicit representations, 
inference (incl. default reasoning), or some run-time decision making
procedure.
I guess time will tell.

Regards... Innes


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Innes A. Ferguson          Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge,
                           Pembroke St., Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
                           BITNET: iaf@cl.cam.ac.uk   JANET: iaf@uk.ac.cam.cl
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bleck@ai.mit.edu (Olaf Bleck) (03/12/91)

|> If the robot encounters a wall, the AVIOD OBSTACLE behavior assumes control 
|> and guides the robot around the wall.  Then the other behavior resumes
|> control.
|> 
|> Does anyone have any information on this method or can they recommend any
|> literature on the subject??


Write or call 

MIT AI Lab Publications Office
545 Technology Square   Rm 818
Cambridge, MA 02139

617-253-6773

Ask for a bibliography or papers by Rodney Brooks.

|> Furthermore, what do you think about his ideas personally??
Well, I work for him...  Enough said!

Actually, this is a really touchy question in the AI community,
particularly when it comes down to proving that this behavior based
programming actually works and isn't just a hack.  In fact, part of the
problem is that there isn't really a universally acceptable mechanism
set up to test it against.

Rod's latest paper, "Integrated Systems Based on Behaviors", addresses
some of these issues.


Tear Here:
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_________________________________________________________________
Olaf Bleck					bleck@ai.mit.edu
Research Scientist				
MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
Mobile Robotics Group