Achieving Rapid Adaptations in Robots by Means of External Tuition

Abstract

Experiments with the Edinburgh R2 mobile robot are presented that show how robots can be taught to accomplish various different tasks, without the need for re-programming the controller, and without using self-tuition. In an externally supervised teaching process --- not unlike the process of "shaping" known in animal learning --- the robot acquires competences such as obstacle avoidance, contour following, box pushing, phototaxis or route learning (mazes). The learning is fast. 1 Introduction It has been shown that competences fundamental to robot control, such as obstacle avoidance or contour following can, in behaviour-based robotics, be achieved through the interaction of independent, so-called behavioural modules ([Malcolm et al. 89, Brooks 85]). The question of how to re-combine and orchestrate several of those fundamental competences in order to synthesize new, more complex global behaviours is as yet an unresolved problem. The experiments presented here show one way to approa...