Adaptation of Coupled Sensorimotor Mappings: An Investigation towards Developmental Learning of Humanoids

Abstract

The engineering of humanoid or similar robot systems requires frameworks and architectures that support the integration of a variety of sensorimotor modalities. Within our computational framework for visually guided reaching we ask how coupled sensorimotor mappings of different modalities can be learned autonomously from scratch. Based on a learning process that allows continuous adaptation of a single sensorimotor mapping, we introduce three strategies (parallel, sequential, and synchronous) for the learning of coupled mappings. These strategies are systematically tested in a simplified simulation. The experiments indicate that stages of development can emerge from synchronous adaptation of sensorimotor mappings of different characteristics. Thus, observed stages in development are not necessarily the result of explicitly defined and triggered learning tasks.