<title>Defining proprioceptive behaviors for autonomous mobile robots</title>

Abstract

Proprioception is a sense of body position and movement that supports the control of many automatic motor functions such as posture and locomotion. This concept, normally relegated to the fields of neural physiology and kinesiology, is being utilized in the field of unmanned mobile robotics. This paper looks at developing proprioceptive behaviors for use in controlling an unmanned ground vehicle. First, we will discuss the field of behavioral control of mobile robots. Next, a discussion of proprioception and the development of proprioceptive sensors will be presented. We will then focus on the development of a unique neural-fuzzy architecture that will be used to incorporate the control behaviors coming directly from the proprioceptive sensors. Finally we will present a simulation experiment where a simple multi-sensor robot, utilizing both external and proprioceptive sensors, is presented with the task of navigating an unknown terrain to a known target position. Results of the mobile robot utilizing this unique fusion methodology will be discussed.