Braitenberg vehicle

A Braitenberg vehicle is a concept conceived in a thought experiment by the Italian-Austrian cyberneticist Valentino Braitenberg. The book models the animal world in a minimalistic and constructive way, from simple reactive behaviours (like phototaxis) through the simplest vehicles, to the formation of concepts, spatial behaviour, and generation of ideas. For the simplest vehicles, the motion of the vehicle is directly controlled by some sensors (for example photo cells). Yet the resulting behaviour may appear complex or even intelligent. A Braitenberg vehicle is an agent that can autonomously move around based on its sensor inputs. It has primitive sensors that measure some stimulus at a point, and wheels (each driven by its own motor) that function as actuators or effectors. In the simplest configuration, a sensor is directly connected to an effector, so that a sensed signal immediately produces a movement of the wheel. Depending on how sensors and wheels are connected, the vehicle exhibits different behaviors (which can be goal-oriented). This means that, depending on the sensor-motor wiring, it appears to strive to achieve certain situations and to avoid others, changing course when the situation changes. The connections between sensors and actuators for the simplest vehicles (2 and 3) can be ipsilateral or contralateral, and excitatory or inhibitory, producing four combinations with different behaviours named fear, aggression, liking, and love. These correspond to biological positive and negative taxes present in many animals species. The following examples are some of Braitenberg's simplest vehicles. The first vehicle has one sensor (e.g. a temperature detector) that directly stimulates its single wheel in a directly proportional way. The vehicle moves ideally in one dimension only and can stand still or move forward at varying speed depending on the sensed temperature. When forces like asymmetric friction come into play, the vehicle could deviate from its straight line motion in unpredictable ways akin to Brownian motion.