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Behavioral-based robotics, 8

neural networks, nervous

nets, and subsumption

architecture

165
ROBOTS OF THE CLASS DISCUSSED IN THIS CHAPTER DO NOT
have a central processing unit (CPU). Rather they function on a
neural stimulus-response mechanism.

The robotic stimulus-response mechanism goes by a number of
names, including neural network, behavioral-based robotics, sub-
sumption architecture, and nervous network. William Grey Walter
pioneered behavioral-based robotics in the late 1940s. Indepen-
dent of Walter’s work, neural-based robotic response was academi-
cally explored and developed in the 1980s by Valentino Braitenberg
in his book Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology.
Rodney Brooks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), inspired by work accomplished by Walter, developed his
own derivative of stimulus responses he calls “subsumption archi-
tecture.” Mark Tilden, inspired by work done by Rodney Brooks,
founded BEAM robotics, which uses “nervous nets.”
Behavioral-based robotics is a hot topic and one that will continue
to get hotter in the future. In these architectural schemes the
stimulus-response mechanisms can be layered on top of one another.
A multilayer stimulus-response mechanism can exhibit what appears

Team LRN
Behavioral-based robotics, neural networks, nervous nets, and subsumption architecture
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