How Cockroaches Employ Wall-Following for Exploration

Animals such as cockroaches depend on exploration of unknown environments, and the complexity of their strategies may inspire robotic approaches. We have previously shown that cockroach behavior with respect to shelters and the walls of an otherwise empty arena can be captured with a stochastic state-based algorithm. We call this algorithm RAMBLER, Randomized Algorithm Mimicking Biased Lone Exploration in Roaches. In this work, we verified and extended this model by adding a barrier to our cockroach experiments. From these experiments, we have generalized RAMBLER to address an arbitrarily large maze. For biology, this is a model of the decision-making process in the cockroach brain. For robotics, this is a strategy that may improve exploration for goals in certain environments. Generally, the cockroach behavior seems to recommend variability in the absence of planning, and following paths defined by the walls.