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Research Paper #695

Title:An Ethological Model for Implementation in Mobile Robots
Authors:Hallam,B; Halperin,J; Hallam,JC
Date:May 1994
Presented:Published in "Adaptive Behavior", vol. 3, no. 1, pages 51-79, 1994 MIT Press
Keywords:learning, mobile robot
Abstract:This paper describes a neuroethological model of learning and motivation which accounts for many of the behavioral phenomena observed in animals. Unusual predictions from the model have been tested and shown to be demonstrable in laboratory Siamese fighting fish. In addition, the model is sufficiently mathematically well-defined to be implementable in a robot or in computer simulation. A trial implementation in a mobile robot was carried out as part of this work. This paper describes a simplified version of the model which was programmed into the robot, a thought experiment designed to show the main features of the model, and the preliminary robot experiments carried out. Putting ethological models of animal behavior onto robots is interesting for both robotics and ethological research: the study of robot autonomy can be enhanced through an understanding of complex and realistic models of animal autonomy; and ethological research should benefit from a supply of guaranteed `naive' agents on which rigorous testing of such models is tractable.
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