Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!fredm
From: fredm@media.mit.edu (Fred G Martin)
Subject: Re: Braitenberg vehicles
Message-ID: <1992May12.033418.29698@news.media.mit.edu>
Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <1992May8.142417.20908@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992May9.050002.28447@news.media.mit.edu> <1992May11.041335.12536@ennews.eas.asu.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 May 1992 03:34:18 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <1992May11.041335.12536@ennews.eas.asu.edu>
gsulliva@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Glenn A Sullivan) writes:

>About 6 or 8 years ago, researchers were excited about SONAR to
>map rooms or guide robots. SIMULATIONS SHOWED IT WOULD WORK.

[stuff about how real robotics is harder than simulations deleted]

>I am thus suspicious of simulations of Bratenburg vehicles.  Small
>angular differences may be critical. Side lobes of IR receptors can
>hurt.

Wow, I've been misunderstood.  

The LEGO Braitenberg creatures we've created are in fact real robots,
with electronic sensors, simple digital logic controls, and DC motors.

However, they are intended as educational toys rather than as robotics
research tools, so if they aren't able to do fancy things, it's not a
condemnation of Braitenberg's ideas in my eyes.  Still, I think it's a
powerful "aha" to realize that feedback behaviors like light-seeking
and light-avoidance can be modeled and implemented with incredibly
simple wiring schemes, and that this mechanism is probably at work in
some class of real insects and bacteria in the world.

My comment about simulations refered to the idea of simulating a
Braitenberg-like circuit with software (rather than hard-wiring it).
I assumed that the software would be hooked up to real sensors and
real motors; thus by "simulating Braitenberg," I did not mean to do
the whole thing in software.

I too get more excited about physical robots than an virtual robots on
a computer screen.

	- Fred

