Really Useful Robots

Abstract

We propose a self-organizing type of controller for a mobile robot. Rather than decompose the control task into subtasks and implement these (an analytic approach) we propose to use competence generators which generate, through a process of self-organization, the necessary competences (a synthetic approach). We have built a mobile robot and equipped it with a first version of such a self-organizing controller. 1 Introduction Controlling a mobile robot can be done in several ways: the classical approach is to equip the robot with control circuits, using feedback loops and traditional control mechanisms to achieve stable behaviour. This is an analytic approach: the control task is decomposed by the designer into subtasks which are then implemented, using standard control techniques. Alternatively, there is the synthetic approach: generate the desired behaviour by combining basic competences, but using a `bottom up' approach rather than a `top down' one. In some sense Rodney Brooks [1,2...