Navigation by weighted chance

This paper deals with the problem of how to control the movement of a simple robot which has the goal to reach a specified target within finite time and to stay within some pre-defined distance to it. The system design proposed is as minimal as possible and reflects the basal reflex are as observed in biological systems. The dynamics is due to a multiplicatively modified random walk. In particular only one simple, omnidirectional sensor is used so that the robot does not receive any directional information about the target. The mobile robot shows a reliable and fast homing behavior towards a defined area and stays in some given neighborhood of it. The computational effort needed is shown to be minimal