Wet artificial brains: Towards the chemical control of robot motion by reaction-diffusion and excitable media

Abstract

The paper gives probably the first ever systematic discussion on how wave processes in reaction-diffusion and excitable homogeneous media can be efficiently used to solve a wide range of problems in robot navigation. Three possible applications of chemical controllers are considered: (i) object following, (ii) optimal path finding, and (iii) universal control. The various implementations of controllers discussed here include: Belousov-Zhabotinsky chemical processors, families of excitable lattices, and self-localised excitations. We present some results from a simulation of robot control using excitable lattices, and find the results encouraging for our planned construction of a chemically controlled robot.