Principled exploitation of behavioural coupling

In robot building, attention tends to focus on internal signal processing and the way desired motor signals are generated. But equally important is the selection and configuration of the robot’s sensory resources. The degree to which sensory input informs the process of output generation directly impacts internal complexity since the more informative input signals are, the less internal processing is required. In the extreme case, input signals may identify motor signals exactly and internal processing may then be eliminated completely. The paper presents an information theoretic model for measuring this tradeoff being input information and internal processing complexity, and establishes the conditions under which it is feasible to utilise the processing-free strategy of ‘direct connection’. The model is then used for purposes of analysing five robots, including two commercial products (Sony AIBO and WowWee’s Robosapiens). The principled exploitation of very informative sensory input is then shown to be effective in an unexpectedly wide range of situations.