DISCRETE-EVENT MODELING OF VISUALLY GUIDED BEHAVIORS

When visual behaviors are combined to provide a specific functionality needed for a task, the combination is often based on heuristic rules. In this article we show that by adopting the Discrete-Event Systems ( DES) formalism for describing the interaction between visual behaviors it is possible to provide systems that have well-defined properties i n terms of observability and controllability. The method is in particu lar suited for describing the coupling between action and perception. An introduction to the use of DES is provided and it is demonstrated h ow DES are used for modeling behaviors and controlling a mobile robot equipped with a binocular camera head and some additional sensors.