Perceptual Reasoning in a Hostile Environment

The thesis of this paper is that perception requires reasoning mechanisms beyond those typically employed in deductive systems. We briefly present some arguments to support this contention, and then offer a framework for a system capable of perceptual reasoning, using sensor-derived information, to survive in a hostile environment. Some of these ideas have been incorporated in a computer program and tested in a simulated environment; a summary of this work and current results are included.