Visual attention control for a legged mobile robot based on information criterion

Visual attention is one of the most important issues for a vision guided mobile robot. Methods have been proposed for visual attention control based on information criterion. However, the robot had to stop walking for observation and decision. This paper presents a method which enables observation and decision more efficiently and adaptively while it is walking. The method uses the expected information gain from future observations for attention control and action decision. It also proposes an image compensation method to handle the image changes due to the robot motion. Both are used to estimate observation probabilities from the observation while it is walking and then action probabilities are estimated from a decision tree based on the information criterion. The method is applied to a four legged robot. Discussions on the visual attention control in the method and the future issues are given.