An Artificial Life perspective on traditional Pacific wave navigation

Abstract

Constructing an autonomous robot or artificial agent using an Artifical Life perspective requires analysis of its perceptual interface with its world. Appropriate sensorimotor dynamics are needed for its embodied interactions with the physical environment in which it is embedded. Similar issues occur for small craft navigation across the seas. These parallels are explored in the context of a newly proposed explanation for the dilep, a wave-mediated pathway between islands in the Pacific as used by traditional wave-navigators in the Marshall Islands.