Active Perceptual Anchoring of Robot Behavior in a Dynamic Environment

Perceptual anchoring is the process of linking action to the appropriate objects in the environment via perception. The pivot of anchoring is the inclusion of micro-models of the world, or anchors, into a controller. In this paper, we propose to use anchors to focus the perceptual eeort according to the current needs of the controller. We describe an active gaze control strategy able to maintain anchoring of several objects in a dynamic environment, and show how we have used it in a team of legged robots in the RoboCup'99 international robot soccer competition.