NEURAL NETWORK CONTROLLER FOR MOBILE ROBOT INSECT

Researchers in the Department of Cybernetics are interested in the development of intelligent machines which can interact with their environment; they should perceive their surroundings and move around them accordingly. To this end, some simple robotic `insects' have been built. Initially these machines were programmed with suitable actions, though recently an extra microprocessor circuit has been added, containing a neural network, which allows the insect to learn these actions. This paper describes the insects, the controller, its implementation, the results obtained and an overview of further work.