An informationally-open, organizationally-closed control structure for navigating a robot in an unknown, stationary environment

This paper examines the roots of purposive behavior in an agent surrounded by a stationary unknown environment. The investigation focuses on deriving a structure for a behavior generation mechanism (BGM) that would semantically embed an agent in the context of its environment. The BGM is made to adhere to the situated, embodied, intelligent, and emergent requirements that were suggested by Brooks for the construction of intelligent control architectures. Concepts from epistemology, artificial life, hybrid systems, and the potential field approach to planning are used. The suggested BGM utilizes both experience and synergy as drivers of action selection. The BGM is intended for use in the specific case of motion planning for a multidimensional agent of arbitrary shape operating in a multidimensional, unknown environment.