Figure: The perception system in an artificial fish.
The perception system of the artificial fish, illustrated in
Fig. 
, comprises a set of virtual on-board sensors
and a perceptual focusser. Currently the artificial fish is equipped
with two sensors that provide information about the dynamic
environment--a temperature sensor that measures the ambient (virtual)
water temperature at the center of the artificial fish's body and a
vision sensor. The focusser is a perceptual attention mechanism which
allows the artificial fish to train its sensors at the world in a
task-specific way, hence filtering out sensory information superfluous
to the needs of the engaged behavior. In the remainder of this
chapter, we describe in detail our implementation of the perceptual
mechanisms of the artificial fish and show how perception governs some
of the most critical behaviors (i.e. reflexive behavior).
| Xiaoyuan Tu | January 1996 |