STEERING WITHOUT REPRESENTATION WITH THE USE OF ACTIVE FIXATION

This paper demonstrates the use of active fixation on both fixed and m oving fixation points to guide a robot vehicle by means of a steering rule which, at large distances, sets the steering angle directly propo rtional to the deviation of gaze direction from translation direction. Steering a motor vehicle around a winding but otherwise uncluttered r oad has been observed by Land and Lee to involve repeated periods of v isual fixation upon the tangent point of the inside of each bend. We s uggest that proportional rule devised for steering in the robotic exam ple appears applicable to the observed human performance data, providi ng an alternative explanation to the quadratic rule proposed by Land a nd Lee.