Towards a systematic approach to the design of fixation mechanisms for active perception

An ongoing effort investigating rigorous approaches to conceptual design is discussed. A case study drawn from the robotics/vision field, concerning the design of fixation mechanisms to support active exploration of the environment in active perception, is developed. A specification of both the system (the fixation mechanism) and the environment into which the system is to be introduced is developed. From this a formal specification of the target environment (when the system has been introduced) is then composed. This specification captures the behavior of the system and, as such, is a mathematical statement of the problem of fixation. The formalism used to develop this statement is based on the formal language CSP