Page 117 - Introduction to AI Robotics

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3 Biological Foundations of the Reactive Paradigm
Agents programs should decompose complex actions into independent
behaviors (or objects), which tightly couple sensing and acting. Behaviors
are inherently parallel and distributed.
In order to simplify control and coordination of behaviors, an agent should
rely on straightforward, boolean activation mechanisms (e.g. IRM).
In order to simplify sensing, perception should filter sensing and consider
only what is relevant to the behavior (action-oriented perception).

Direct perception (affordances) reduces the computational complexity of
sensing, and permits actions to occur without memory, inference, or in-
terpretation.

Behaviors are independent, but the output from one 1) may be combined
with another to produce a resultant output, or 2) may serve to inhibit
another (competing-cooperating).

Schema theory is an object-oriented way of representing and thinking about
behaviors. The important attributes of schema theory for behaviors are:

Schema theory is used to represent behaviors in both animals and com-
puters, and is sufficient to describe intelligence at the first two levels of a
computational theory.

A behavioral schema is composed of at least one motor schema and at
least one perceptual schema, plus local, behavior-specific knowledge about
how to coordinate multiple component schemas.

More than one behavior schema can be instantiated at a time, but the
schemas act independently.

A behavior schema can have multiple instantiations which act indepen-
dently, and are combined.

Behaviors or schemas can be combined, sequenced, or inhibit one another.

3.8 Exercises

Exercise 3.1
Describe the three levels in a Computational Theory.