Behavioral models of the praying mantis as a basis for robotic behavior
Formal models of animal sensorimotor behavior can provide effective methods for generating robotic intelligence. In this article we describe how schema-theoretic models of the praying mantis derived from behavioral and neuroscientific data can be implemented on a hexapod robot equipped with a real time color vision system. This implementation incorporates a wide range of behaviors, including obstacle avoidance, prey acquisition, predator avoidance, mating, and chantlitaxia behaviors that can provide guidance to neuroscientists, ethologists, and roboticists alike. The goals of this study are threefold: to provide an understanding and means by which fielded robotic systems are not competing with other agents that are more effective at their designated task; to permit them to be successful competitors within the ecological system and capable of displacing less efficient agents; and that they are ecologically sensitive so that agent-environment dynamics are well-modeled and as predictable as possible whenever new robotic technology is introduced. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
schema-based control behavior-based robotics praying mantis behavior