Incremental building of a model of environment in the context of the mccuiioch-craik’s functional architecture for mobile robots

Abstract

Current robotics is perhaps the most complete paradigm of applied Artificial Intelligence, since it includes generic tasks involving pluri-sensorial integration and intemal representation, as well as motor planning and control. In this paper we revise the architecture proposed by Craik and McCulloch and the concept of environment model introduced by K. Craik. Based on this architecture, which links the description in terms of properties with the selection of a mode of action, we study a simple example application in which an incremental procedure is proposed for the constmction and use of a model of a structured medium (the interior of a building) using a graph. The type of graph used to store the descriptions of objects and the relations between them is inspired by the work of Hillier and Hanson on the analysis of interiors. The connections between the elements of the environment (graph nodes) are generated in such a way as to facilitate their efficient use for the selection of the most pertinent mode of action at any given moment. The derivation of the graph is carried out autonomously. In the development of this work, we have avoided as far as possible the use of anthropomorphic terms with no causal connection to the Symbol level. Posed in this way, the problem of the representation and use of an environment model by a robot reduces to the use of models of generic tasks and methods at the knowledge level together with graphs and finite State machines at the formal level.