Quantitative description of robot-environment interaction using chaos theory
Mobile robotics research to date is still largely reliant on trial-and-error procedures, rather than exploiting established theories describing robot-environment interaction in a formal manner, making falsifiable predictions and allowing quantitative descriptions of a robot's behaviour. We argue that quantitative performance measures are the first step towards a theory of robot-environment interaction, and present the theoretical background to such measures, as well as their practical application to mobile robotics research. Results obtained with a Pioneer II mobile robot, executing a number of different tasks in a range of environments, are presented. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
chaos theory mobile robotics dynamical systems theory quantitative description of robot-enviromnent interaction scientific robotics analytical robotics