Visual Navigation in a Robot Using Zig-Zag Behavior

Abstract

1 INTRODUCTION Srinivasan and Zhang (1993) describe behavioral evidence for two distinct movement detecting systems in bee: (1) A direction selective pathway with low frequency response characteristics serving the optomotor response and (2) A non-direction selective movement system with higher frequency response serving functions of obstacle avoidance and the `tunnel centering' response where the animal seeks a flight path along the centerline of a narrow corridor. Recently, this parallel movement detector view has received support from anatomical evidence in fly (Douglass and Strausfeld, 1996). We are concerned here with the implications of using non-direction selective movement detectors for tasks such as obstacle avoidance. A reasonable model of a non-direction selective pathway would be that this pathway is computing the absolute value of the optic flow, i.e. where are the components of the optic flow field on the retina at the point . What is the effect of using the absolute valu...