Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!gatech!cc.gatech.edu!arkin
From: arkin@gatech.edu (Ronald Arkin)
Subject: Re: MIT Insect Robots
Message-ID: <1992Jun14.112450.18461@cc.gatech.edu>
Sender: news@cc.gatech.edu
Organization: Georgia Tech AI Group
References: <1992Jun8.095241.9328@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>> <RG.92Jun10094502@nymph.msel.unh.edu> <1992Jun13.155917.29904@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu>
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1992 11:24:50 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <1992Jun13.155917.29904@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> rwmurphr@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Robert W Murphree) writes:
>
>>I'm curious to see if anyone is working on combining the bug approaches with
>>biologically realistic memory.  Any references?
>Alan Arkin at Georgia tech is, as I understand it.

Sorry to disillusion comp.robotics, but to the best of my
knowledge Alan Arkin is still out in Hollywood. 
Ron Arkin (me), no relation to Alan, is the sole robotics
Arkin in Atlanta to my knowledge.

Regarding biological models of memory - we are not
following stict neurophysiological models of memory
for our work - in our estimation, too little is known
at this point for such an effort to be fruitful in
controlling an autonomous robot. This may change in the
future as more data from neuroscientists becomes available.

We do however, wherever feasible, make an effort to be
cognitively plausible. Our research has been strongly influenced
by cognitive psychologists, such as Norman and Neisser, who abstract
away from the neural substrate and provide models of behavior
which are suitable for implementation. An article last year
in IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics describes this work
(the title escapes me at the moment I think the issues was 
Jan/Feb of 1990 or 1991) - something like The_IMpact_of_Cybernetics_
on_the design_of_a_mobile_robot_system. A more recent paper will be
appearing in the upcoming book edited by R. Beer and published by
Academic Press, later this year.

- Ron
-- 
Ronald C. Arkin
College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0280
Phone: (404)-894-8209            Fax: (404)-853-9378
