Löffler A, Klahold J, Rückert U. The Mini-Robot Khepera as a Foraging Animate: Synthesis and Analysis of Behaviour. In: Rückert U, Sitte J, Witkowski U, eds. Proceedings of the 5th International Heinz Nixdorf Symposium: Autonomous Minirobots for Research and Edutainment (AMiRE01). Vol 97. Paderborn, Germany: Heinz Nixdorf Institut, Universität Paderborn; 2001: 93-130.The work presented in this paper deals with the development of a methodology
for resource-efficient behaviour synthesis on autonomous systems. In this context, a definition
of a maximal problem with respect to the resources of a given system is introduced. It
is elucidated by means of an exemplary implementation of the solution to such a problem
using the mini-robot Khepera as the experimental platform. The described task consists of
exploring an unknown and dynamically changing environment, collecting and transporting
objects, which are associated with light-sources, and navigating to a home-base. The critical
point is represented by the accumulated positioning errors in odometrical path-integration
due to slippage. Therefore, adaptive sensor calibration using a specific variant of Kohonen’s
algorithm is applied in two cases to extract symbolic, e.g. geometric, information from the
sub-symbolic sensor data, which is used to enhance position control by landmark mapping
and orientation. In order to successfully handle the arising complex interactions, a heterogeneous
control-architecture based on a parallel implementation of basic behaviours coupled
by a rule-based central unit is proposed
