Analysis of the scenery perceived by a real mobile robot Khepera

Abstract

In order to understand the dynamic interactions of autonomous robots with their environments, the flow of the sensory information perceived by a real mobile robot Khepera was analyzed with the return map. The plot of X _n+1 v.s. X _n of chaotic time series X _n , called the return map, have been widely used to reveal the hidden structure. A real mobile robot Khepera was evolved in three different environments with various levels of complexity. The fitness function of GA operations included the complexity measure of the control structure, i.e., individuals with a simpler structure obtained a higher score. The evolution lead to develop the robot with the minimal structure sufficient to live and perform tasks in the given environment. The return maps of these robots differed each other considerably. However, when the robot evolved in the most complex environment was asked to navigate in the other two environments, the return maps obtained there were similar to (or a substructure of) the one in the most complex environment. These results indicated that the autonomous robot behaved such a way that the flow of sensory information did not depend much on the environment where he situated but largely on the one where he had evolved.