Downsizing robotics: Autonomy vs. intelligence

Abstract

Research on Mobile robotics is in our opinion more focused on generating autonomous behaviors than on the development of basic technologies (locomotion, localization, navigation, etc.). However, this issue is really a complex problem where many technologies converge: artificial perception, electronics, even philosophy and there are no general theories generally accepted in the research community. Historically, Cybernetics was the first subjacent theory, then artificial intelligence techniques were the dominant paradigm used to try the solve the problem, in the 90s the focus turned to biology based systems, nowadays ethology has emerged again as the most promising theories to generate autonomous behavior. In this paper we want to present the most relevant concepts borrowed from ethology that have been successfully used in mobile robotics, such as the use of ethograms in robotic pets or the ideas of schemes, or the use of fixed actions patterns to implement reactivity