Mobile Robot Learning by Self-Observation

Abstract

The aim of the project described in this paper was to investigate robot learning at a most fundamental level. The project focused on the transition between organisms with innate behaviors and organisms that have the most rudimentary capability of learning through their personal interaction with their environment. It was assumed that the innate behaviors gave basic survival competence but no learning ability. By observing the interaction between their innate behaviors and the organism's environment it was reasoned that the organism should be able to learn how to modify its actions in a way that improves its performance. If a learning system is given more information than it requires then, when it is successful, it is difficult to say which pieces of information contribute to the success. For this reason the information available to the learning system was kept to an absolute minimum. In order to provide a practical test of the learning scheme developed in this project, the robot environment EDEN was constructed. Within EDEN a robot's actions influence its internal ‘energy’ reserves. The environment incorporates sources of energy, and it also involves situations that use additional energy or reduce energy consumption. A successful learning scheme was developed purely based on the recorded history of the robot's interactions with its environment and the knowledge that the robot's innate behavior was reactive. This learning scheme allowed the robot to improve its energy management by exhibiting classical conditioning and a restricted form of operant conditioning.