Shaping robot behavior using principles from instrumental conditioning

Shaping by successive approximations is an important animal training technique in which behavior is gradually adjusted in response to strategically timed reinforcements. We describe a computational model of this shaping process and its implementation on a mobile robot. Innate behaviors in our model are sequences of actions and enabling conditions, and shaping is a behavior editing process realized by multiple editing mechanisms. The model replicates some fundamental phenomena associated with instrumental learning in animals, and allows an RWI B21 robot to learn several distinct tasks derived from the same innate behavior.