Behavior-based Robotics And The Reactive Paradigm A Survey

Behavior-based robots have come under the spotlight in recent years by making their presence known in diverse fields of human interest. Applications in behavior-based robotics have continued to grow in areas such as demining, search and rescue, office automation, health care, etc and continue to replace human beings in risky and menial tasks. With this inspiration, this paper investigates a variety of aspects in behavior-based robotics and the reactive paradigm in the context of their origins, concepts, applications and current research and is intended to provide a comprehensive overview about this area in robotics. The paper will review several central issues including a brief history of robotics, transition of robotic systems from hierarchical paradigm to reactive paradigm, biological/ethological inspiration for behavior-based robots, fundamentals of the reactive paradigm, architectures for controlling robotic behavior and the hybrid deliberative/reactive paradigm.