An Adaptive Control System for

Mobile Robot Navigation

Mark Nelson

Abstract

This research concerns the construction of a control system which possesses a performance capability that may be perceived to simulate aspects of intelligence. In particular, a navigational control architecture enabling a mobile robot to perform tasks in a dynamic environment is considered. The underlying premise states that complex behaviour can be achieved as a consequence of many interactions between simple computational processes which are responding to a complex environment. Under this philosophy, a control structure has been developed which possesses two mechanisms: degradation and regression, that provide a capacity for adapting the complexity of its behaviour in response to external influences in the environnment.