Braitenberg Vehicles

A little history…

Valentino Braitenberg (born 1926) is a cyberneticist and former director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany.

Wrote “Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology”, where these vehicles were designed

The basic setup..

BodyLight Sensor

Wheel/motor

Inhibitory Circuit

Excitatory Circuit

Non-motored wheels under hereTo keep it standing

Definitions

Inhibitory circuit: when sensor gets activated, motor slows

Excitatory circuit: when sensor gets activated, motor speeds

Sensor is a light sensor, unless otherwise noted

Vehicle 1: Alive

Demonstrates basic function of Braitenberg vehicleGoes towards a light source in front of it

Vehicle 2: Cowardly

Demonstrates basic “fight or flight” instinct in animalsTurns away from light if one sensor is activated more than the otherIf both are equal, light source is “attacked”

Vehicle 2b: Aggressive

If light source is placed near either sensor, vehicle will face itand go toward it

Basically demonstrates territorial instincts

Vehicle 3: Loving

Will go until it finds a light source, then slow to a stopIf one side sees light, vehicle turns in the direction of lightModels love/adoration

--Crossing circuits has a similar reaction

A little more complicated: Vehicle 3c: Knowing

Red: Light SensorGreen: Temperature SensorBlue: Organic Material SensorGrey: Oxygen Sensor

Repeats all our previous vehicles capabilities, with different sensesTurns towards light, doesn’t like heat, loves organic material, searches

for best OxygenPerforms the brain function of some of the simplest living beings

Other types of vehicles

Vehicle 4b: all links both excitatory and inhibitory but non-monotonic

Non-monotonic: motors do not increase and decrease speed linearly (e.g. may go (fastest-slowest-slowest-fastest in speed)

Other vehicles can be found:http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Vehicles_online.html

Moral of the Story

“Law of Uphill Analysis and Downhill Invention: machines are easy to understand if you’re creating them; much harder to understand ‘from the outside’.

Psychological consequence: if we don’t know the internal structure of a machine, we tend to overestimate its complexity.”

Most information was taken from

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Vehicles_online.html