[From Bruce Abbott (981028.1955 EST)]
Richard Kennaway (981028.1540) --
As yet, this behaviour is not part of the control of any perception, but
just a blind cyclic program. However, if pointed in the direction of a
staircase it can successfully walk up and down without losing its balance.
Oh yes, for those who have seen earlier versions of the Bug, I've added a
variety of different terrains for it to walk over.
Running on a 400 MHz Pentium II, this has a big Wow! factor. You can
actually see it walking and struggling to keep its balance on the stairs,
with the animation running at upwards of 150 frames per second.
Impressive! Emergent capabilities such as these were also noted by Rodney
Brooks at MIT in his "subsumption architecture" electromechanical bugs. It
is also reminiscent of the behavior of the little circles of Bill's "crowd"
demo, which formed circles and arcs and ran to catch up after having to
detour around an obstacle, although not spcifically programmed to do so.
Regards,
Bruce