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.. Body Light Sensor Wheel/motor Inhibitory Circuit Excitatory Circuit Non-motored wheels under here To 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 vehicle Goes towards a light source in front of it

Vehicle 2: Cowardly Demonstrates basic “fight or flight” instinct in animals Turns away from light if one sensor is activated more than the other If both are equal, light source is “attacked”

Vehicle 2b: Aggressive If light source is placed near either sensor, vehicle will face it and go toward it Basically demonstrates territorial instincts

Vehicle 3: Loving Will go until it finds a light source, then slow to a stop If one side sees light, vehicle turns in the direction of light Models love/adoration --Crossing circuits has a similar reaction

A little more complicated: Vehicle 3c: Knowing Red: Light Sensor Green: Temperature Sensor Blue: Organic Material Sensor Grey: Oxygen Sensor Repeats all our previous vehicles capabilities, with different senses Turns towards light, doesn’t like heat, loves organic material, searches for best Oxygen Performs 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: cles_online.html cles_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 cles_online.html cles_online.html