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Cognitive mapping robot navigation
We are developing a process whereby a robot creates a cognitive map of its environment via ultrasonic transducers, and uses distance and orientation information to find its way home.
Our robot uses distance and orientation information to find its way home.
Animal behaviour
- When an animal explores a new environment, it does not acquire a precise map of the places visited.
- Research has shown that learning is a recurring process.
- Over time, new information helps the animal to update its perception of the locations it has visited.
- They are still able to use the fuzzy and often incomplete representation to find their way home.
- This process is termed the cognitive mapping process.
The research
- The work undertaken uses a mobile robot equipped with sonar sensors.
- Initially, the robot is instructed to compute a cognitive map of its environment. Since a robot is not a cognitive agent, it cannot, by definition, compute a cognitive map.
- We approximate such a map by creating a network of local spaces, each being a rough estimate of local space, with known exit points.
The results
- From the experiments, the robot was able to compute a rough representation of the places visited.
- Our robot uses distance and orientation information to find its way home.
- The process developed provides interesting insights into the nature of cognitive mapping and encourages us to use a mobile robot to do cognitive mapping in the future, as opposed to its popular use in robot mapping.