The impact of cybernetics on the design of a mobile robot system: a case study

The design of an autonomous robot architecture is analyzed in light of the cognitive psychological, neuroscientific, and ethological studies that influenced its development. Motor schema-based navigation and its relationship to models of detour behavior in amphibians is described. Application of the action-perception cycle in the context of action-oriented perception is discussed, with particular emphasis on the role of expectations as focus-of-attention mechanisms. The process of homeostatic control as a means of dynamically modifying motor behavior based on internal sensing is also described. These approaches are substantiated throughout with simulation studies and actual mobile robot experiments