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An Introduction to the Analysis of Braitenberg Vehicles 2 and 3 Using Phase Plane Portrait

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From Animals to Animats 12 (SAB 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7426))

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Abstract

Braitenberg vehicles are a widely used model of animal behaviour in robotics and Artificial Life. This paper presents the first comprehensive and formal analysis of the behaviour of Braitenberg vehicles 2 and 3. After a review of their intuitive behaviour we present their models as dynamical systems, that under circularly symmetric stimuli can be simplified and analysed using the phase plot technique. We prove that intuitive understanding is not enough to determine the potential behaviour of vehicles 2b and 3a and, under certain circumstances, they could behave as vehicles 2a and 3b respectively. This work paves the way to a proper understanding of Braitenberg vehicles, as it provides theoretical support for their many existing empirically grounded works.

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Rañó, I. (2012). An Introduction to the Analysis of Braitenberg Vehicles 2 and 3 Using Phase Plane Portrait. In: Ziemke, T., Balkenius, C., Hallam, J. (eds) From Animals to Animats 12. SAB 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7426. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33093-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33093-3_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33092-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33093-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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