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Vol: 48(62) No: 1 / March 2003      

Neural Mechanisms of Learning and Control in Mobile Robotic Systems
M. Dragoicea
Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, Politehnica University Bucharest, Independentei 313, 77206 Bucharest, Romania, phone: (421) 402 9167, e-mail: ma-dragoicea@ics.pub.ro
I. Dumitrache
Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, Politehnica University Bucharest, Independentei 313, 77206 Bucharest, Romania, e-mail: idumitrache@ics.pub.ro


Keywords: mobile robots, cognitive models, perception, behavior, neural networks control, autonomous navigation.

Abstract
Today AI roboticists often turn to biological sciences being that animals can provide existence proofs of different aspects of intelligence. By focusing on the way living creatures \"do\" something (i.e. analyzing \"inputs\" and \"outputs\" of their behavior) roboticists can gain insights into how to organize \"intelligence\". This paper proposes a strategy for mobile robot control that naturally integrates intelligent techniques for autonomous navigation. A new application of artificial neural networks for autonomous navigation of mobile robots in a reactive way is depicted here. In the perception of the sensory information of different modalities that defines the mobile robot environment, the major learning strategy seems to be biologically characterized by sensory information categorization and classification. Therefore neural networks models of self-organizing type were used in order to establish and adapt a place representation through a progressive learning process in which fast learning takes place.

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