[comp.robotics] Robots and neural nets?

ruth@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ruth Aylett) (06/04/90)

First an general question: is this an appropriate place to ask software
questions? I ask because most of the postings so far seem to be more
concerned with hardware, so maybe there is some other group that
discusses path and task planning, vision, data fusion from sensors and
so on?

But assuming it is an appropriate place, does anyone have any references
to the use of neural nets in robotics? Is there any practical work in
the area using this approach? Any references gratefully received.
                                              Ruth Aylett
                                              ruth@aiai.uucp
                                              R.Aylett@ed.ac.uk

ins_atge@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Thomas G Edwards) (06/05/90)

In article <2639@skye.ed.ac.uk> ruth@aiai.UUCP (Ruth Aylett) writes:
>But assuming it is an appropriate place, does anyone have any references
>to the use of neural nets in robotics? Is there any practical work in
>the area using this approach? Any references gratefully received.

I have heard of the ALVINN project at Carnegie Mellon.  It used
backpropagation training on simulated roads with visual and laser
rangefinder inputs, and after extenisve learning it had
some real-world navigational ability in the NavLab's truck they
use for testing autonomous navigation systems.

I'm sure someone from CMU can add to what I have said (I only read the
technical report).

-Thomas Edwards
 Looking for an AI/Robotics/Neural Net style Ph.D. program