Maja J Mataric' Basis Behaviors Behavior-based control is one of the three dominant paradigms for robot control. For more details please look here . In 1991 I introduced the notion of basis behaviors , a means for facilitating principled behavior synthesis and analysis in behavior-based systems. The basis behavior set of a system provides elements that are not further reducible to each other and that, when composed by sequential or concurrent execution, produce the complete behavior repertoire for the system.
Biology provides evidence in support of basis behaviors at a variety of levels.
A particularly clean and compelling case can be found in motor control. A relatively small set of basis vector fields, found in the frog and rat spine, generate the animal's entire motor behavior repertoire from appropriate combinations of the basis vectors. In the case of motor control, the behaviors constitute prototypical reaches, grasps, throws, strides, and so on. My PhD thesis outlined desirable criteria for selecting and evaluating basis behaviors, and subsequent work addressed learning and evolution of such basis sets. To see examples of articulated control using basis behaviors, look here .